Which to use
“depose” is a verb and “deposit” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #43,107
- “depose” frequency rank
- #4,750
- “deposit” frequency rank
- 47857
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | depose | deposit |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To put down; to lay down; to deposit; to lay aside; to put away. | 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 depose and deposit
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. depose runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against deposit's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between depose and deposit
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: depose is /dɪˈpəʊz/ 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 47857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
depose is recorded at frequency rank #43,107, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈpəʊz/. 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 47857, this pair ranks #198,528 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of depose vs deposit
Shared letters: deops. Private to "depose": -. Private to "deposit": it.
"depose" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "deposit" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "depose" for "deposit" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "depose" or "deposit" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "depose" and "deposit" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "depose" 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 #198,528 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "depose" and "deposit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "depose vs Devos". 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 #198,528 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.