deavsdelayWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“dea” and “delay” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#26,817
“dea” frequency rank
#28,143
“delay” frequency rank
54960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dea delay
Definition die Göttin Aufenthalt

Letter map: dea vs delay

Shared letters muted; letters that set dea and delay apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
dea
5 ch
delay

Corpus notes: dea and delay

dea and delay are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dea is recorded at frequency rank #26,817, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. delay is at rank #28,143, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dɪˈleɪ].

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 54960, this pair ranks #998,170 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dea vs delay

Shared letters: ade. Private to "dea": -. Private to "delay": ly.

"dea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "delay" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delayddelay · dealy · delayy · dellay · delya · dleay · edlay

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dea" and "delay" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "dea" or "delay" show up more?
"dea" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,817 in our German list, against #28,143 for "delay". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dea" and "delay".

  • Full dictionary entry for "dea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "delay" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #998,170 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dea" and "delay" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dea vs puzzles". 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 #998,170 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