dépvsdropWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#41,754
“dép” frequency rank
#16,859
“drop” frequency rank
58613
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dép drop
Definition Dépanneur. Coup de pied en demi-volée par lequel un joueur de rugby tente d’envoyer le ballon par-dessus la barre horizontale du but de l’équipe adverse.

Where the eye mixes dép and drop

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dép runs 3 letters (CVC) against drop's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
dép
4 ch
drop

Look-alike desk: dép vs drop

A purely visual mix-up. dép (\dɛp\) and drop (\dʁɔp\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dép is recorded at frequency rank #41,754, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɛp\. drop is at rank #16,859, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔp\.

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 58613, this pair ranks #108,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dép vs drop

Shared letters: dp. Private to "dép": é. Private to "drop": or.

"dép" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "drop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drop ← ddrop · dorp · dropp · drpo · drrop · rdop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dép" for "drop" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɛp\ versus \dʁɔp\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dép" or "drop"?
"drop" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,859 in our French list, against #41,754 for "dép". 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 "dép" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #108,021 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dép" and "drop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs dép". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #108,021 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