tentéesvstenterWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#41,039
“tentées” frequency rank
#1,723
“tenter” frequency rank
42762
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tentées tenter
Definition Participe passé féminin pluriel de tenter. Essayer, éprouver ou mettre en usage quelque moyen pour faire réussir quelque chose.

Same sound, different letters: tentées vs tenter

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters. tentées runs 7 letters (CVCCVVC) against tenter's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
tentées
6 ch
tenter

Ear matches; page differs - tentées and tenter

This is the hard kind. tentées and tenter are pronounced identically (\tɑ̃.te\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42762, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tentées is recorded at frequency rank #41,039, classified as averb, pronounced \tɑ̃.te\. tenter is at rank #1,723, tagged as averb, pronounced \tɑ̃.te\.

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 42762, this pair ranks #223,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tentées vs tenter

Shared letters: ent. Private to "tentées": sé. Private to "tenter": r.

"tentées" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "tenter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tenter ← etnter · tenetr · tennter · tenterr · tentre · tentter · tetner · tneter

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tentées" and "tenter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\tɑ̃.te\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "tentées" vs "tenter" - which ranks higher?
"tenter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,723 in our French list, against #41,039 for "tentées". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "tentées" / "tenter". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tentées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tenter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #223,129 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tentées" and "tenter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tentais vs tentées". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #223,129 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