Which to use
“drap” and “drop” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #15,130
- “drap” frequency rank
- #16,859
- “drop” frequency rank
- 31989
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drap | drop |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Grande pièce de toile, généralement utilisée par paire, avec laquelle on garnit un lit pour isoler le corps, soit du matelas, soit des couvertures. Ellipse de drap de linge, devenu désuet. | Coup de pied en demi-volée par lequel un joueur de rugby tente d’envoyer le ballon par-dessus la barre horizontale du but de l’équipe adverse. |
Where the eye mixes drap and drop
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between drap and drop
A purely visual mix-up. drap (\dʁa\) and drop (\dʁɔp\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - a in “drap” becomes o in “drop”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31989, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drap is recorded at frequency rank #15,130, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁa\. drop is at rank #16,859, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔp\.
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 31989, this pair ranks #300,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drap vs drop
Shared letters: dpr. Private to "drap": a. Private to "drop": o.
"drap" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "drop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "drap" for "drop" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "drap" or "drop" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "drap" and "drop" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drap" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #300,282 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drap" and "drop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dray vs drop". 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 #300,282 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.