décollevsdécoupéConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#18,725
“décolle” frequency rank
#17,935
“découpé” frequency rank
36660
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature décolle découpé
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de décoller. Qui est coupé en plusieurs parties.

Letter map: décolle vs découpé

Shared letters muted; letters that set décolle and découpé apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. décolle (CVCVCCV) and découpé (CVCVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
décolle
7 ch
découpé

Part-of-speech tell for décolle / découpé

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: décolle is averb and découpéanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

décolle is recorded at frequency rank #18,725, classified as averb, pronounced \de.kɔl\. découpé is at rank #17,935, tagged as anadj.

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 36660, this pair ranks #268,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of décolle vs découpé

Shared letters: cdoé. Private to "décolle": el. Private to "découpé": pu.

"décolle" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "découpé" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "décolle" and "découpé" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "décolle" is a verb and "découpé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "décolle" or "découpé" show up more?
"découpé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,935 in our French list, against #18,725 for "décolle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "décolle" and "découpé". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "décolle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "découpé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #268,044 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "décolle" and "découpé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "découpé vs décousu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #268,044 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