delvesvsDevosWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: delves is a verb, Devos is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“delves” is a verb and “Devos” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,077
“delves” frequency rank
#39,777
“Devos” frequency rank
80854
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature delves Devos
Definition third-person singular simple present indicative of delve A surname from Dutch.

Letter map: delves vs Devos

Shared letters muted; letters that set delves and Devos apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. delves runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against Devos's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
delves
5 ch
Devos

Part-of-speech tell for delves / Devos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: delves is averb and Devosaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80854, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

delves is recorded at frequency rank #41,077, classified as averb, pronounced /dɛlvz/. Devos is at rank #39,777, 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 80854, this pair ranks #18,918 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of delves vs Devos

Shared letters: desv. Private to "delves": l. Private to "Devos": o.

"delves" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Devos" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delves ← ddelves · delevs · dellves · delvess · delvse · delvves · devles · dleves
  • Devos ← ddevos · deovs · devoss · devso · devvos · dveos · edvos

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "delves" and "Devos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "delves" is a verb and "Devos" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "delves" or "Devos" show up more?
"Devos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,777 in our English list, against #41,077 for "delves". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "delves" vs "Devos" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "delves" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Devos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,918 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "delves" and "Devos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "delved vs delves". 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 #18,918 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