disparuevsdisparusWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,950
“disparue” frequency rank
#8,376
“disparus” frequency rank
16326
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature disparue disparus
Definition Femme disparue. Masculin pluriel de disparu.

Same sound, different letters: disparue vs disparus

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 7 letters. disparue (CVCCVCVV) and disparus (CVCCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
disparue
8 ch
disparus

Same sound, different spelling - disparue / disparus

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: disparue and disparus carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dis.pa.ʁy\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - e in “disparue” becomes s in “disparus”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16326, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

disparue is recorded at frequency rank #7,950, classified as anoun, pronounced \dis.pa.ʁy\. disparus is at rank #8,376, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dis.pa.ʁy\.

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 16326, this pair ranks #388,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of disparue vs disparus

Shared letters: adiprsu. Private to "disparue": e. Private to "disparus": -.

"disparue" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVV  ·  "disparus" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • disparue ← ddisparue · dipsarue · disaprue · dispareu · disparrue · dispaure · dispparue · dispraue
  • disparus ← ddisparus · dipsarus · disaprus · disparrus · disparsu · disparuss · dispaurs · dispparus

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "disparue" and "disparus" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "disparue" is a noun and "disparus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "disparue" or "disparus"?
"disparue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,950 in our French list, against #8,376 for "disparus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "disparue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "disparus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,343 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "disparue" and "disparus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "disparais vs disparus". 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 #388,343 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