vieillissantevsvieillissentWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: vieillissante is a adjective, vieillissent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“vieillissante” is an adjective and “vieillissent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,064
“vieillissante” frequency rank
#35,770
“vieillissent” frequency rank
76834
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature vieillissante vieillissent
Definition Féminin singulier de vieillissant. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de vieillir.

Where the eye mixes vieillissante and vieillissent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 11 letters in sequence. vieillissante runs 13 letters (CVVVCCVCCVCCV) against vieillissent's 12 (CVVVCCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

13 ch
vieillissante
12 ch
vieillissent

Visual trap between vieillissante and vieillissent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: vieillissante is \vjɛ.ji.sɑ̃t\ while vieillissent is \vjɛ.jis\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76834, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

vieillissante is recorded at frequency rank #41,064, classified as anadj, pronounced \vjɛ.ji.sɑ̃t\. vieillissent is at rank #35,770, tagged as averb, pronounced \vjɛ.jis\.

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 76834, this pair ranks #30,053 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of vieillissante vs vieillissent

Shared letters: eilnstv. Private to "vieillissante": a. Private to "vieillissent": -.

"vieillissante" · 13 letters · shape CVVVCCVCCVCCV  ·  "vieillissent" · 12 letters · shape CVVVCCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • vieillissante ← iveillissante · veiillissante · vieililssante · vieilissante · vieillisante · vieillisasnte · vieillissanet · vieillissannte
  • vieillissent ← iveillissent · veiillissent · vieililssent · vieilissent · vieillisent · vieillisesnt · vieillissennt · vieillissentt

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "vieillissante" and "vieillissent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "vieillissante" is an adjective and "vieillissent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "vieillissante" or "vieillissent" show up more?
"vieillissent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #35,770 in our French list, against #41,064 for "vieillissante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "vieillissante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vieillissent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #30,053 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "vieillissante" and "vieillissent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "vieillissant vs vieillissante". 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 #30,053 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