dérive

/\de.ʁiv\/ noun

Letters

6 characters

Frequency Rank

#7,052

in French word usage

Misspellings

9

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

dérive is aFrenchnoun. It means: Écart, déviation entre le cap effectivement suivi par un navire ou un aéroplane et le cap initialement fixé. Pronounced \de.ʁiv\. It ranks #7,052 in French word frequency. Often confused with dive and drive.

Key facts for dérive
PropertyValue
Headworddérive
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\de.ʁiv\
Letters6
Frequency rank#7,052
Misspellings tracked9
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of dérive in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for dérive is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \de.ʁiv\. Corpus data places it at rank #7,052 in overall French word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for dérive, with forms such as "ddérive", "derive", and "dréive". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "dive", "drive", "doive", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is dérive, spelled D-É-R-I-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Écart, déviation entre le cap effectivement suivi par un navire ou un aéroplane et le cap initialement fixé.
  2. 2
    Angle que la quille du bâtiment fait avec la direction réelle de sa route.
  3. 3
    Déplacement en mer, au gré du vent et des courants, en parlant des glaces ou des varechs.
  4. 4
    Mauvaise direction, mauvaise pente.
  5. 5
    Élément fixe ou mobile d'un bateau permettant de réduire les déplacements du bateau dans la direction perpendiculaire à son plan de symétrie, à la différence du gouvernail, qui est destiné à permettre le changement de cap.
  6. 6
    Aileron situé sous la planche de surf, et qui sert la stabiliser.
  7. 7
    Empennage vertical qui comporte une partie mobile qui a la même fonction que le gouvernail sur un navire.
  8. 8
    Action, en particulier politique, qui diffère de celle annoncée par ceux qui la mènent.
  9. 9
    Tendance des abeilles à retourner à la mauvaise ruche à la fin d’un vol.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: ddérive,derive,dréive,déirve,dériev,dérivve,dérrive,dérvie,édrive

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for dérive

Misspelling Variants of "dérive"

ddérive7derive6dréive6déirve6dériev6dérivve7dérrive7dérvie6
Misspelling Variants of "dérive"

Frequency rank: #7,052 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "dérive"?
"dérive" is spelled D-É-R-I-V-E. The IPA pronunciation is \de.ʁiv\.
What does "dérive" mean?
As a noun, "dérive" means: Écart, déviation entre le cap effectivement suivi par un navire ou un aéroplane et le cap initialement fixé.
What words are commonly confused with "dérive"?
"dérive" is commonly confused with "dive", "drive", "doive". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "dérive"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "dérive" is \de.ʁiv\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "dérive" come from?
"dérive" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter D in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.