deo vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#17,556
“deo” frequency rank: #38
“du” frequency rank: 17594
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	deo	du
Definition	ein Gott, eine Gottheit (geschlechtsneutral, allerdings ist die weibliche Wortform selten, die männliche – *deulo – gar nicht belegt)	der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird

Letter map: deo vs du

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

3 ch

deo

2 ch

Grammar separator: deo vs du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: deo is anoun and duapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17594, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deo is recorded at frequency rank #17,556, 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 17594, this pair ranks #1,926,000 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of deo vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "deo": eo. Private to "du": u.

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

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deo" for "du" ever safe?

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

Which is more common, "deo" or "du"?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our German list, against #17,556 for "deo". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

Full dictionary entry for "deo" 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 #1,926,000 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"deo" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deo vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,926,000 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.