Which to use
“travail” is a noun and “travaillent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #194
- “travail” frequency rank
- #3,424
- “travaillent” frequency rank
- 3618
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | travail | travaillent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Labeur, application à une tâche, effort soutenu pour faire quelque chose, en parlant de l’esprit comme du corps. | Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de travailler. |
Same sound, different letters: travail vs travaillent
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. travail runs 7 letters (CCVCVVC) against travaillent's 11 (CCVCVVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Ear matches; page differs - travail and travaillent
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: travail and travaillent carry the same recorded pronunciation, \tʁa.vaj\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 4 extra letter(s) - “travail” sits inside “travaillent”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3618, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
travail is recorded at frequency rank #194, classified as anoun, pronounced \tʁa.vaj\. travaillent is at rank #3,424, tagged as averb, pronounced \tʁa.vaj\.
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 3618, this pair ranks #433,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of travail vs travaillent
Shared letters: ailrtv. Private to "travail": -. Private to "travaillent": en.
"travail" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC · "travaillent" · 11 letters · shape CCVCVVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- travail ← rtavail · tarvail · traavil · travaill · travali · travial · travvail · trravail
- travaillent ← rtavaillent · tarvaillent · traavillent · travailelnt · travailent · travaillennt · travaillentt · travailletn
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "travail" and "travaillent" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "travail" vs "travaillent" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've separated the homophone pair "travail" / "travaillent". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "travail" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "travaillent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #433,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "travail" and "travaillent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "travaillent vs travailleront". 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 #433,603 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.