devsdeuxConfusable pair

Quick tell: de is a abbrev, deux is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“de” is an abbrev and “deux” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#247
“de” frequency rank
#29,540
“deux” frequency rank
29787
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature de deux
Definition nach ISO 639-1 für Deutsch zwei

Letter map: de vs deux

Shared letters muted; letters that set de and deux apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
de
4 ch
deux

Part-of-speech tell for de / deux

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: de is anabbrev and deuxanum. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “de” sits inside “deux”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

de is recorded at frequency rank #247, classified as anabbrev. deux is at rank #29,540, tagged as anum, pronounced [dø].

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 29787, this pair ranks #1,760,315 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of de vs deux

Shared letters: de. Private to "de": -. Private to "deux": ux.

"de" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "deux" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deuxddeux · deuxx · dexu · duex · edux

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "de" and "deux" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "de" is an abbrev and "deux" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "de" or "deux" show up more?
"de" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #247 in our German list, against #29,540 for "deux". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "de" vs "deux" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "de" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "deux" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,760,315 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "de" and "deux" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dess vs deux". 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 #1,760,315 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list