découpervsdéroulerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#15,361
“découper” frequency rank
#11,956
“dérouler” frequency rank
27317
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature découper dérouler
Definition Couper par morceaux une pièce de viande ou détacher un à un les membres d’une pièce de volaille, de gibier. Étendre ce qui était roulé et le mettre de son long.

Where the eye mixes découper and dérouler

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. découper and dérouler follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
découper
8 ch
dérouler

Visual trap between découper and dérouler

A purely visual mix-up. découper (\de.ku.pe\) and dérouler (\de.ʁu.le\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27317, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

découper is recorded at frequency rank #15,361, classified as averb, pronounced \de.ku.pe\. dérouler is at rank #11,956, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.ʁu.le\.

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 27317, this pair ranks #329,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of découper vs dérouler

Shared letters: deorué. Private to "découper": cp. Private to "dérouler": l.

"découper" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVC  ·  "dérouler" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "découper" and "dérouler" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\de.ku.pe\ versus \de.ʁu.le\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "découper" or "dérouler" show up more?
"dérouler" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,956 in our French list, against #15,361 for "découper". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "découper" and "dérouler" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "découper" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dérouler" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,751 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "découper" and "dérouler" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "découper vs dérouter". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #329,751 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