decidingvsdevisingWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“deciding” and “devising” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#5,953
“deciding” frequency rank
#34,018
“devising” frequency rank
39971
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deciding devising
Definition The act of making a decision. the act of creating a plan or some object, especially a will

Letter map: deciding vs devising

Shared letters muted; letters that set deciding and devising apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

8 ch
deciding
8 ch
devising

Pair insight - deciding / devising

deciding and devising are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39971, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deciding is recorded at frequency rank #5,953, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɪˈsaɪ.dɪŋ/. devising is at rank #34,018, tagged as anoun.

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 39971, this pair ranks #271,833 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deciding vs devising

Shared letters: degin. Private to "deciding": c. Private to "devising": sv.

"deciding" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC  ·  "devising" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • decidingdceiding · ddeciding · decciding · decdiing · decidding · decidign · decidingg · decidinng
  • devisingddevising · deivsing · deviisng · devisign · devisingg · devisinng · devisnig · devissing

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "deciding" and "devising" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary English text, does "deciding" or "devising" show up more?
"deciding" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,953 in our English list, against #34,018 for "devising". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "deciding" and "devising". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deciding" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devising" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #271,833 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deciding" and "devising" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "desiring vs devising". 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 #271,833 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list