disperséevsdisperserConfusable pair

Quick tell: dispersée is a adjective, disperser is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#31,922
“dispersée” frequency rank
#18,461
“disperser” frequency rank
50383
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dispersée disperser
Definition Féminin singulier de dispersé. Répandre, jeter çà et là.

Same sound, different letters: dispersée vs disperser

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 8 letters. dispersée (CVCCVCCVV) and disperser (CVCCVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
dispersée
9 ch
disperser

Same sound, different spelling - dispersée / disperser

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: dispersée and disperser carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dis.pɛʁ.se\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50383, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dispersée is recorded at frequency rank #31,922, classified as anadj, pronounced \dis.pɛʁ.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 50383, this pair ranks #163,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dispersée vs disperser

Shared letters: deiprs. Private to "dispersée": é. Private to "disperser": -.

"dispersée" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVV  ·  "disperser" · 9 letters · shape CVCCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dispersée" and "disperser" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dispersée" is an adjective and "disperser" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dispersée" or "disperser" show up more?
"disperser" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,461 in our French list, against #31,922 for "dispersée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dispersée" 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 #163,069 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dispersée" and "disperser" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dispersée vs dispersent". 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 #163,069 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