Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “den” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,753
- “dear” frequency rank
- #7,004
- “den” frequency rank
- 8757
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | den |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | High in price; expensive. | A small cavern or hollow place in the side of a hill, or among rocks; especially, a cave used by a wild animal for shelter or concealment. |
Where the eye mixes dear and den
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses dear with den
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dear is /dɪə/ while den is /dɛn/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8757, 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/. den is at rank #7,004, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɛn/.
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 8757, this pair ranks #500,875 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs den
Shared letters: de. Private to "dear": ar. Private to "den": n.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "den" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dear ← daer · ddear · dearr · dera · edar
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dear" for "den" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "dear" or "den" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "dear" and "den" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "den" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #500,875 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "den" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "den vs dox". 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 #500,875 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.