dégagéevsdégagentTell them apart

Quick tell: dégagée is a adjective, dégagent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#16,602
“dégagée” frequency rank
#20,704
“dégagent” frequency rank
37306
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dégagée dégagent
Definition Féminin singulier de dégagé. Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de dégager.

Where the eye mixes dégagée and dégagent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. dégagée runs 7 letters (CVCVCVV) against dégagent's 8 (CVCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
dégagée
8 ch
dégagent

Why the eye confuses dégagée with dégagent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dégagée is \de.ɡa.ʒe\ while dégagent is \de.ɡaʒ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37306, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dégagée is recorded at frequency rank #16,602, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.ɡa.ʒe\. dégagent is at rank #20,704, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.ɡaʒ\.

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 37306, this pair ranks #263,375 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dégagée vs dégagent

Shared letters: adegé. Private to "dégagée": -. Private to "dégagent": nt.

"dégagée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "dégagent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dégagée" and "dégagent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dégagée" is an adjective and "dégagent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dégagée" or "dégagent" show up more?
"dégagée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,602 in our French list, against #20,704 for "dégagent". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dégagée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dégagent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #263,375 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dégagée" and "dégagent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "décadent vs dégagent". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #263,375 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