disparaisvsdisparateWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: disparais is a verb, disparate is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#47,287
“disparais” frequency rank
#44,986
“disparate” frequency rank
92273
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature disparais disparate
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de disparaître (ou disparaitre). Qui présente un défaut de conformité d’un effet désagréable.

Where the eye mixes disparais and disparate

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

9 ch
disparais
9 ch
disparate

Look-alike desk: disparais vs disparate

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: disparais is \dis.pa.ʁɛ\ while disparate is \dis.pa.ʁat\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 92273, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

disparais is recorded at frequency rank #47,287, classified as averb, pronounced \dis.pa.ʁɛ\. disparate is at rank #44,986, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dis.pa.ʁat\.

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 92273, this pair ranks #3,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of disparais vs disparate

Shared letters: adiprs. Private to "disparais": -. Private to "disparate": et.

"disparais" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVVC  ·  "disparate" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • disparais ← ddisparais · dipsarais · disaprais · dispaaris · disparaiss · disparasi · disparias · disparrais
  • disparate ← ddisparate · dipsarate · disaprate · dispaarte · disparaet · disparatte · disparrate · dispartae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "disparais" for "disparate" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "disparais" is a verb and "disparate" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "disparais" or "disparate" show up more?
"disparate" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,986 in our French list, against #47,287 for "disparais". 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 "disparais" and "disparate" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "disparais" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "disparate" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #3,131 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "disparais" and "disparate" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "disparais vs disparates". 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 #3,131 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