Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “Delmar” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,753
- “dear” frequency rank
- #47,567
- “Delmar” frequency rank
- 49320
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | Delmar |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | High in price; expensive. | A surname from Old French. |
Letter map: dear vs Delmar
Shared letters muted; letters that set dear and Delmar apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. dear runs 4 letters (CVVC) against Delmar's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - dear and Delmar
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dear is anadjective and Delmaraname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dear is recorded at frequency rank #1,753, classified as anadj, pronounced /dɪə/. Delmar is at rank #47,567, tagged as aname.
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 49320, this pair ranks #184,760 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs Delmar
Shared letters: ader. Private to "dear": -. Private to "Delmar": lm.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "Delmar" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dear" for "Delmar" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "dear" or "Delmar" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dear" and "Delmar".
- Full dictionary entry for "dear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Delmar" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #184,760 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "Delmar" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Delmar vs Dewar". 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 #184,760 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.