deportvsdepositTell them apart

Quick tell: deport is a verb, deposit is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“deport” is a verb and “deposit” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,948
“deport” frequency rank
#4,750
“deposit” frequency rank
27698
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deport deposit
Definition To comport (oneself); to behave. Sediment or rock that is not native to its present location or is different from the surrounding material. Sometimes refers to ore or gems.

Where the eye mixes deport and deposit

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

6 ch
deport
7 ch
deposit

Visual trap between deport and deposit

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: deport is /dɪˈpɔɹt/ while deposit is /dɪˈpɒz.ɪt/. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27698, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deport is recorded at frequency rank #22,948, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈpɔɹt/. deposit is at rank #4,750, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɪˈpɒz.ɪt/.

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 27698, this pair ranks #376,848 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deport vs deposit

Shared letters: deopt. Private to "deport": r. Private to "deposit": is.

"deport" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "deposit" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deport ← ddeport · deoprt · deporrt · deportt · depotr · depport · deprot · dpeort
  • deposit ← ddeposit · deopsit · depoist · depositt · depossit · deposti · depposit · depsoit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deport" for "deposit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "deport" is a verb and "deposit" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "deport" vs "deposit" - which ranks higher?
"deposit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,750 in our English list, against #22,948 for "deport". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "deport" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "deposit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #376,848 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deport" and "deposit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deport vs depose". 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 #376,848 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list