dépouillevsdépouilléeTell them apart

Quick tell: dépouille is a noun, dépouillée is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dépouille” is a noun and “dépouillée” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,612
“dépouille” frequency rank
#42,306
“dépouillée” frequency rank
57918
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dépouille dépouillée
Definition Peau qui, au moment de la mue, se détache du corps des serpents et de certains insectes. Féminin singulier de dépouillé.

Where the eye mixes dépouille and dépouillée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 9 letters in sequence. dépouille runs 9 letters (CVCVVVCCV) against dépouillée's 10 (CVCVVVCCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
dépouille
10 ch
dépouillée

Visual trap between dépouille and dépouillée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dépouille is \de.puj\ while dépouillée is \de.pu.je\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dépouille is recorded at frequency rank #15,612, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.puj\. dépouillée is at rank #42,306, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.pu.je\.

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 57918, this pair ranks #112,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dépouille vs dépouillée

Shared letters: deilopué. Private to "dépouille": -. Private to "dépouillée": -.

"dépouille" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVVCCV  ·  "dépouillée" · 10 letters · shape CVCVVVCCVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dépouille" for "dépouillée" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dépouille" is a noun and "dépouillée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dépouille" or "dépouillée"?
"dépouille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,612 in our French list, against #42,306 for "dépouillée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dépouille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dépouillée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #112,150 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dépouille" and "dépouillée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dépouillée vs dépouiller". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #112,150 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