rêvaientvsrêvaitTell them apart

Which to use

“rêvaient” and “rêvait” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,857
“rêvaient” frequency rank
#18,315
“rêvait” frequency rank
64172
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rêvaient rêvait
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de rêver. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de rêver.

Same sound, different letters: rêvaient vs rêvait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. rêvaient runs 8 letters (CVCVVVCC) against rêvait's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
rêvaient
6 ch
rêvait

Ear matches; page differs - rêvaient and rêvait

This is the hard kind. rêvaient and rêvait are pronounced identically (\ʁɛ.vɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64172, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rêvaient is recorded at frequency rank #45,857, classified as averb, pronounced \ʁɛ.vɛ\. rêvait is at rank #18,315, tagged as averb, pronounced \ʁɛ.vɛ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 64172, this pair ranks #78,351 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of rêvaient vs rêvait

Shared letters: airtvê. Private to "rêvaient": en. Private to "rêvait": -.

"rêvaient" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVVCC  ·  "rêvait" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "rêvaient" and "rêvait" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\ʁɛ.vɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "rêvaient" vs "rêvait" - which ranks higher?
"rêvait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,315 in our French list, against #45,857 for "rêvaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

"rêvaient" and "rêvait" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rêvaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rêvait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #78,351 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rêvaient" and "rêvait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "réparent vs rêvaient". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #78,351 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list