décotevsdépôtsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“décote” and “dépôts” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,242
“décote” frequency rank
#6,499
“dépôts” frequency rank
47741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature décote dépôts
Definition Réduction de la cote, baisse de la valeur. Pluriel de dépôt.

Where the eye mixes décote and dépôts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. décote (CVCVCV) and dépôts (CVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
décote
6 ch
dépôts

Why the eye confuses décote with dépôts

A purely visual mix-up. décote (\de.kɔt\) and dépôts (\de.po\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

décote is recorded at frequency rank #41,242, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.kɔt\. dépôts is at rank #6,499, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.po\.

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 47741, this pair ranks #184,503 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of décote vs dépôts

Shared letters: dté. Private to "décote": ceo. Private to "dépôts": psô.

"décote" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "dépôts" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "décote" for "dépôts" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\de.kɔt\ versus \de.po\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "décote" or "dépôts" show up more?
"dépôts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,499 in our French list, against #41,242 for "décote". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "décote" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépôts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #184,503 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "décote" and "dépôts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs décote". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #184,503 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