dérivéevsdriverWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#22,550
“dérivée” frequency rank
#19,812
“driver” frequency rank
42362
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dérivée driver
Definition Limite du taux d’accroissement d’une fonction d'une variable réelle en un point quand l’accroissement de la variable tend vers zéro. Club de golf.

Where the eye mixes dérivée and driver

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
dérivée
6 ch
driver

Why the eye confuses dérivée with driver

A purely visual mix-up. dérivée (\de.ʁi.ve\) and driver (\dʁaj.vœʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42362, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dérivée is recorded at frequency rank #22,550, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.ʁi.ve\. driver is at rank #19,812, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁaj.vœʁ\.

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 42362, this pair ranks #226,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dérivée vs driver

Shared letters: deirv. Private to "dérivée": é. Private to "driver": -.

"dérivée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV  ·  "driver" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • driverddriver · dirver · drievr · driverr · drivre · drivver · drriver · drvier

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dérivée" and "driver" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\de.ʁi.ve\ versus \dʁaj.vœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dérivée" vs "driver" - which ranks higher?
"driver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,812 in our French list, against #22,550 for "dérivée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dérivée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "driver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #226,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dérivée" and "driver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "décriée vs dérivée". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #226,178 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