dépassaient vs dépassait

Which to use

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

#39,763
“dépassaient” frequency rank: #20,993
“dépassait” frequency rank: 60756
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dépassaient	dépassait
Definition	Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de dépasser.	Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de l’indicatif de dépasser.

Same sound, different letters: dépassaient vs dépassait

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 9 letters. dépassaient runs 11 letters (CVCVCCVVVCC) against dépassait's 9 (CVCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

11 ch

dépassaient

9 ch

dépassait

Ear matches; page differs - dépassaient and dépassait

This is the hard kind. dépassaient and dépassait are pronounced identically (\de.pa.sɛ\) and both work as averb. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60756, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dépassaient is recorded at frequency rank #39,763, classified as averb, pronounced \de.pa.sɛ\. dépassait is at rank #20,993, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.pa.sɛ\.

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 60756, this pair ranks #95,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dépassaient vs dépassait

Shared letters: adipsté. Private to "dépassaient": en. Private to "dépassait": -.

"dépassaient" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCCVVVCC · "dépassait" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dépassaient" and "dépassait" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They are pronounced the same (\de.pa.sɛ\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.

In ordinary French text, does "dépassaient" or "dépassait" show up more?

"dépassait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,993 in our French list, against #39,763 for "dépassaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

Full dictionary entry for "dépassaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dépassait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #95,926 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dépassaient" and "dépassait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dépassait vs déposait". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #95,926 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.