département vs department

Which to use

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

#1,136
“département” frequency rank: #30,975
“department” frequency rank: 32111
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	département	department
Definition	Chacune des parties des affaires d’État, distribuées entre les ministres et dont la connaissance leur est attribuée.	Ministère (d’un gouvernement).

Letter map: département vs department

Shared letters muted; letters that set département and department apart highlighted. Shared run: 9. département runs 11 letters (CVCVCCVCVCC) against department's 10 (CVCVCCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch

département

10 ch

department

Corpus notes: département and department

département and department are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32111, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

département is recorded at frequency rank #1,136, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.paʁ.tə.mɑ̃\. department is at rank #30,975, tagged as anoun.

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 32111, this pair ranks #299,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of département vs department

Shared letters: ademnprt. Private to "département": é. Private to "department": -.

"département" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCCVCVCC · "department" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

department ← ddepartment · deaprtment · deparmtent · deparrtment · departemnt · departmennt · departmentt · departmetn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "département" and "department" be used interchangeably?

No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

In ordinary French text, does "département" or "department" show up more?

"département" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,136 in our French list, against #30,975 for "department". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "département" and "department".

Full dictionary entry for "département" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "department" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #299,512 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"département" and "department" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "département vs dépaysement". 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 #299,512 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.