dépasséevsdépasséesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#16,606
“dépassée” frequency rank
#30,580
“dépassées” frequency rank
47186
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dépassée dépassées
Definition Féminin singulier de dépassé. Féminin pluriel de dépassé.

Same sound, different letters: dépassée vs dépassées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. dépassée runs 8 letters (CVCVCCVV) against dépassées's 9 (CVCVCCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
dépassée
9 ch
dépassées

Homophone desk: dépassée vs dépassées

This is the hard kind. dépassée and dépassées are pronounced identically (\de.pa.se\) and both work as anadjective. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “dépassée” sits inside “dépassées”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47186, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dépassée is recorded at frequency rank #16,606, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.pa.se\. dépassées is at rank #30,580, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.pa.se\.

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 47186, this pair ranks #188,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dépassée vs dépassées

Shared letters: adepsé. Private to "dépassée": -. Private to "dépassées": -.

"dépassée" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVV  ·  "dépassées" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dépassée" and "dépassées" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are pronounced the same (\de.pa.se\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
Which is more common, "dépassée" or "dépassées"?
"dépassée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,606 in our French list, against #30,580 for "dépassées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dépassée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépassées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #188,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dépassée" and "dépassées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délaissées vs dépassées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #188,885 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