emparavséparsConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#34,519
“empara” frequency rank
#36,217
“épars” frequency rank
70736
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature empara épars
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de emparer. Répandu de ci, de là.

Letter map: empara vs épars

Shared letters muted; letters that set empara and épars apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. empara runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against épars's 5 (VCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
empara
5 ch
épars

Part-of-speech tell for empara / épars

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: empara is averb and éparsanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70736, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

empara is recorded at frequency rank #34,519, classified as averb, pronounced \ɑ̃.pa.ʁa\. 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 70736, this pair ranks #50,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of empara vs épars

Shared letters: apr. Private to "empara": em. Private to "épars": sé.

"empara" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "épars" · 5 letters · shape VCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • empara ← emapra · emmpara · empaar · emparra · emppara · empraa · epmara · mepara

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "empara" for "épars" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "empara" is a verb and "épars" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "empara" vs "épars" - which ranks higher?
"empara" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #34,519 in our French list, against #36,217 for "épars". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "empara" 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 #50,229 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "empara" and "épars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "empara vs España". 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 #50,229 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