dépendaient vs dépendait

Which to use

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

#41,250
“dépendaient” frequency rank: #17,415
“dépendait” frequency rank: 58665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dépendaient	dépendait
Definition	Troisième personne du pluriel de l’imparfait de dépendre.	Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de dépendre.

Same sound, different letters: dépendaient vs dépendait

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

11 ch

dépendaient

9 ch

dépendait

Ear matches; page differs - dépendaient and dépendait

This is the hard kind. dépendaient and dépendait are pronounced identically (\de.pɑ̃.dɛ\) 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 58665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dépendaient is recorded at frequency rank #41,250, classified as averb, pronounced \de.pɑ̃.dɛ\. dépendait is at rank #17,415, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.pɑ̃.dɛ\.

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 58665, this pair ranks #107,683 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dépendaient vs dépendait

Shared letters: adeinpté. Private to "dépendaient": -. Private to "dépendait": -.

"dépendaient" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCCVVVCC · "dépendait" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dépendaient" for "dépendait" ever safe?

No. They are pronounced the same (\de.pɑ̃.dɛ\), 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, "dépendaient" or "dépendait"?

"dépendait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,415 in our French list, against #41,250 for "dépendaient". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "dépendaient" / "dépendait". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

Full dictionary entry for "dépendaient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dépendait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #107,683 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dépendaient" and "dépendait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dépendaient vs descendaient". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #107,683 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.