décorevsdéposeConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#33,232
“décore” frequency rank
#7,431
“dépose” frequency rank
40663
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature décore dépose
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de décorer. Action d’enlever ce qui était posé.

Where the eye mixes décore and dépose

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. décore and dépose follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
décore
6 ch
dépose

Why the eye confuses décore with dépose

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: décore is \de.kɔʁ\ while dépose is \de.poz\. 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 40663, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

décore is recorded at frequency rank #33,232, classified as averb, pronounced \de.kɔʁ\. dépose is at rank #7,431, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.poz\.

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 40663, this pair ranks #238,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of décore vs dépose

Shared letters: deoé. Private to "décore": cr. Private to "dépose": ps.

"décore" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "dépose" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "décore" and "dépose" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "décore" is a verb and "dépose" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "décore" or "dépose" show up more?
"dépose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,431 in our French list, against #33,232 for "décore". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "décore" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépose" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #238,889 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "décore" and "dépose" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs décore". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #238,889 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