dépasséesvsdépassentWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: dépassées is a adjective, dépassent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dépassées” is an adjective and “dépassent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,580
“dépassées” frequency rank
#9,476
“dépassent” frequency rank
40056
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dépassées dépassent
Definition Féminin pluriel de dépassé. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de dépasser.

Where the eye mixes dépassées and dépassent

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. dépassées (CVCVCCVVC) and dépassent (CVCVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
dépassées
9 ch
dépassent

Look-alike desk: dépassées vs dépassent

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dépassées is \de.pa.se\ while dépassent is \de.pas\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40056, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dépassées is recorded at frequency rank #30,580, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.pa.se\. dépassent is at rank #9,476, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.pas\.

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 40056, this pair ranks #243,388 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dépassées vs dépassent

Shared letters: adepsé. Private to "dépassées": -. Private to "dépassent": nt.

"dépassées" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVVC  ·  "dépassent" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dépassées" and "dépassent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dépassées" is an adjective and "dépassent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dépassées" or "dépassent"?
"dépassent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,476 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.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "dépassées" and "dépassent" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dépassées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépassent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #243,388 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dépassées" and "dépassent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délaissées vs dépassées". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #243,388 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