écartvséparsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#3,232
“écart” frequency rank
#36,217
“épars” frequency rank
39449
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature écart épars
Definition Action par laquelle deux parties d’une chose s’écartent plus ou moins l’une de l’autre. Répandu de ci, de là.

Letter map: écart vs épars

Shared letters muted; letters that set écart and épars apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. écart and épars follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
écart
5 ch
épars

Role in the sentence - écart and épars

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: écart is anoun and éparsanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

écart is recorded at frequency rank #3,232, classified as anoun, pronounced \e.kaʁ\. épars is at rank #36,217, tagged as anadj.

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 39449, this pair ranks #247,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of écart vs épars

Shared letters: aré. Private to "écart": ct. Private to "épars": ps.

"écart" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC  ·  "épars" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "écart" and "épars" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "écart" is a noun and "épars" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "écart" or "épars"?
"écart" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,232 in our French list, against #36,217 for "épars". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "écart" vs "épars" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "écart" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "épars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #247,885 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "écart" and "épars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "épars vs épaté". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #247,885 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