voyaitvsvoyantsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: voyait is a verb, voyants is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#4,634
“voyait” frequency rank
#27,293
“voyants” frequency rank
31927
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voyait voyants
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de voir. Masculin pluriel de voyant.

Where the eye mixes voyait and voyants

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. voyait runs 6 letters (CVVVVC) against voyants's 7 (CVVVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
voyait
7 ch
voyants

Look-alike desk: voyait vs voyants

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voyait is \vwa.jɛ\ while voyants is \vwa.jɑ̃\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31927, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voyait is recorded at frequency rank #4,634, classified as averb, pronounced \vwa.jɛ\. voyants is at rank #27,293, tagged as anadj, pronounced \vwa.jɑ̃\.

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 31927, this pair ranks #300,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of voyait vs voyants

Shared letters: aotvy. Private to "voyait": i. Private to "voyants": ns.

"voyait" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC  ·  "voyants" · 7 letters · shape CVVVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voyaitovyait · voayit · voyaitt · voyati · voyiat · voyyait · vvoyait · vyoait
  • voyantsovyants · voaynts · voyannts · voyanst · voyantss · voyantts · voyatns · voynats

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "voyait" and "voyants" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voyait" is a verb and "voyants" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "voyait" or "voyants" show up more?
"voyait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,634 in our French list, against #27,293 for "voyants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "voyait" and "voyants" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voyait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "voyants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #300,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voyait" and "voyants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "volantes vs voyants". 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 #300,675 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