dei vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“dei” is a noun and “du” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,028
“dei” frequency rank: #38
“du” frequency rank: 7066
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dei	du
Definition	Genitiv Singular des Substantivs deus	der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird

Letter map: dei vs du

Shared letters muted; letters that set dei and du apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

dei

2 ch

Role in the sentence - dei and du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dei is anoun and duapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7066, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dei is recorded at frequency rank #7,028, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. du is at rank #38, tagged as apron, pronounced [duː].

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 7066, this pair ranks #1,989,491 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dei vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "dei": ei. Private to "du": u.

"dei" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dei" and "du" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dei" is a noun and "du" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "dei" or "du" show up more?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our German list, against #7,028 for "dei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "dei" vs "du" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "dei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,989,491 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dei" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dei vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,989,491 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.