dispensésvsdisperserTell them apart

Which to use

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

#23,173
“dispensés” frequency rank
#18,461
“disperser” frequency rank
41634
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dispensés disperser
Definition Participe passé masculin pluriel de dispenser. Répandre, jeter çà et là.

Where the eye mixes dispensés and disperser

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. dispensés and disperser follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

9 ch
dispensés
9 ch
disperser

Look-alike desk: dispensés vs disperser

A purely visual mix-up. dispensés (\dis.pɑ̃.se\) and disperser (\dis.pɛʁ.se\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41634, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dispensés is recorded at frequency rank #23,173, classified as averb, pronounced \dis.pɑ̃.se\. disperser is at rank #18,461, tagged as averb, pronounced \dis.pɛʁ.se\.

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 41634, this pair ranks #231,654 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dispensés vs disperser

Shared letters: deips. Private to "dispensés": né. Private to "disperser": r.

"dispensés" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC  ·  "disperser" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • disperser ← ddisperser · dipserser · diseprser · disperesr · disperrser · disperserr · dispersre · dispersser

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dispensés" and "disperser" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\dis.pɑ̃.se\ versus \dis.pɛʁ.se\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dispensés" vs "disperser" - which ranks higher?
"disperser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,461 in our French list, against #23,173 for "dispensés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dispensés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "disperser" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #231,654 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dispensés" and "disperser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dispersent vs disperser". 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 #231,654 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