vendaientvsvendaitWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#30,016
“vendaient” frequency rank
#16,769
“vendait” frequency rank
46785
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vendaient vendait
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de vendre. Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de vendre.

Same sound, different letters: vendaient vs vendait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. vendaient runs 9 letters (CVCCVVVCC) against vendait's 7 (CVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
vendaient
7 ch
vendait

Homophone desk: vendaient vs vendait

This is the hard kind. vendaient and vendait are pronounced identically (\vɑ̃.dɛ\) 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 46785, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vendaient is recorded at frequency rank #30,016, classified as averb, pronounced \vɑ̃.dɛ\. vendait is at rank #16,769, tagged as averb, pronounced \vɑ̃.dɛ\.

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 46785, this pair ranks #192,102 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of vendaient vs vendait

Shared letters: adeintv. Private to "vendaient": -. Private to "vendait": -.

"vendaient" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVVVCC  ·  "vendait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vendaientevndaient · vednaient · venadient · vendaeint · vendaiennt · vendaientt · vendaietn · vendainet
  • vendaitevndait · vednait · venadit · vendaitt · vendati · venddait · vendiat · venndait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "vendaient" for "vendait" ever safe?
No. They are pronounced the same (\vɑ̃.dɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Frequency check: "vendaient" vs "vendait" - which ranks higher?
"vendait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,769 in our French list, against #30,016 for "vendaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vendaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vendait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #192,102 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vendaient" and "vendait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vendait vs vendrait". 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 #192,102 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