developmentvsdéveloppentWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: development is a noun, développent is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“development” is a noun and “développent” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,920
“development” frequency rank
#8,843
“développent” frequency rank
26763
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature development développent
Definition Développement. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de développer.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set development and développent apart are highlighted. They share 9 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

11 ch
development
11 ch
développent

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: development is \dɪˈvɛl.əp.mənt\ while développent is \de.vlɔp\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26763, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

development is recorded at frequency rank #17,920, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɪˈvɛl.əp.mənt\. développent is at rank #8,843, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.vlɔp\.

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 26763, this pair ranks #333,002 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of development vs développent

Shared letters: delnoptv. Private to "development": m. Private to "développent": é.

"development" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCVCCVCC  ·  "développent" · 11 letters · shape CVCVCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • developmentddevelopment · deevlopment · devellopment · develompent · developemnt · developmennt · developmentt · developmetn

Frequency comparison

development#17,920
développent#8,843

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "development" and "développent" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "development" is a noun and "développent" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "development" or "développent"?
"développent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,843 in our French list, against #17,920 for "development". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering development vs développent

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “development”; for a verb, it's “développent”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “development” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list