partancevspartantsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#34,236
“partance” frequency rank
#32,103
“partants” frequency rank
66339
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature partance partants
Definition Départ. Masculin pluriel de partant.

Where the eye mixes partance and partants

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. partance (CVCCVCCV) and partants (CVCCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
partance
8 ch
partants

Why the eye confuses partance with partants

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: partance is \paʁ.tɑ̃s\ while partants is \paʁ.tɑ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66339, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

partance is recorded at frequency rank #34,236, classified as anoun, pronounced \paʁ.tɑ̃s\. partants is at rank #32,103, tagged as anadj, pronounced \paʁ.tɑ̃\.

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 66339, this pair ranks #68,272 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of partance vs partants

Shared letters: anprt. Private to "partance": ce. Private to "partants": s.

"partance" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCV  ·  "partants" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • partanceaprtance · paratnce · parrtance · partacne · partancce · partanec · partannce · partnace
  • partantsaprtants · paratnts · parrtants · partannts · partanst · partantss · partantts · partatns

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "partance" and "partants" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "partance" is a noun and "partants" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "partance" or "partants" show up more?
"partants" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,103 in our French list, against #34,236 for "partance". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "partance" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "partants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #68,272 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "partance" and "partants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "partance vs portante". 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 #68,272 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