déciméevsdérivéeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#42,299
“décimée” frequency rank
#22,550
“dérivée” frequency rank
64849
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature décimée dérivée
Definition Participe passé féminin singulier de décimer. Limite du taux d’accroissement d’une fonction d'une variable réelle en un point quand l’accroissement de la variable tend vers zéro.

Where the eye mixes décimée and dérivée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
décimée
7 ch
dérivée

Look-alike desk: décimée vs dérivée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: décimée is \de.si.me\ while dérivée is \de.ʁi.ve\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64849, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

décimée is recorded at frequency rank #42,299, classified as averb, pronounced \de.si.me\. dérivée is at rank #22,550, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.ʁi.ve\.

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 64849, this pair ranks #75,071 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of décimée vs dérivée

Shared letters: deié. Private to "décimée": cm. Private to "dérivée": rv.

"décimée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "dérivée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "décimée" and "dérivée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "décimée" is a verb and "dérivée" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "décimée" vs "dérivée" - which ranks higher?
"dérivée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,550 in our French list, against #42,299 for "décimée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "décimée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dérivée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #75,071 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "décimée" and "dérivée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "décimale vs décimée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #75,071 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