départsvsdépôtsTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,158
“départs” frequency rank
#6,499
“dépôts” frequency rank
15657
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature départs dépôts
Definition Pluriel de départ. Pluriel de dépôt.

Where the eye mixes départs and dépôts

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. départs runs 7 letters (CVCVCCC) against dépôts's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
départs
6 ch
dépôts

Visual trap between départs and dépôts

A purely visual mix-up. départs (\de.paʁ\) and dépôts (\de.po\) 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 15657, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

départs is recorded at frequency rank #9,158, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.paʁ\. dépôts is at rank #6,499, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.po\.

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 15657, this pair ranks #391,422 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of départs vs dépôts

Shared letters: dpsté. Private to "départs": ar. Private to "dépôts": ô.

"départs" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC  ·  "dépôts" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "départs" and "dépôts" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\de.paʁ\ versus \de.po\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "départs" or "dépôts"?
"dépôts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,499 in our French list, against #9,158 for "départs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "départs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépôts" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #391,422 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "départs" and "dépôts" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Delors vs dépôts". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #391,422 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