découdrevsdécoupéWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#29,736
“découdre” frequency rank
#17,935
“découpé” frequency rank
47671
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature découdre découpé
Definition Défaire ce qui est cousu. Qui est coupé en plusieurs parties.

Letter map: découdre vs découpé

Shared letters muted; letters that set découdre and découpé apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. découdre runs 8 letters (CVCVVCCV) against découpé's 7 (CVCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
découdre
7 ch
découpé

Part-of-speech tell for découdre / découpé

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: découdre is averb and découpéanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47671, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

découdre is recorded at frequency rank #29,736, classified as averb, pronounced \de.kudʁ\. 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 47671, this pair ranks #185,093 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of découdre vs découpé

Shared letters: cdoué. Private to "découdre": er. Private to "découpé": p.

"découdre" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCCV  ·  "découpé" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "découdre" and "découpé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "découdre" is a verb and "découpé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "découdre" vs "découpé" - which ranks higher?
"découpé" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,935 in our French list, against #29,736 for "découdre". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "découdre" vs "découpé" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "découdre" 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 #185,093 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "découdre" and "découpé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "découpé vs décousu". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #185,093 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