DemsvsdewWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,032
“Dems” frequency rank
#14,511
“dew” frequency rank
23543
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Dems dew
Definition plural of Dem Any moisture from the atmosphere condensed by cool bodies upon their surfaces.

Where the eye mixes Dems and dew

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Dems
3 ch
dew

Visual trap between Dems and dew

A purely visual mix-up. Dems (/dɛmz/) and dew (/d͡ʒuː/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Dems is recorded at frequency rank #9,032, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɛmz/. dew is at rank #14,511, tagged as anoun, pronounced /d͡ʒuː/.

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 23543, this pair ranks #408,546 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Dems vs dew

Shared letters: de. Private to "Dems": ms. Private to "dew": w.

"Dems" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dew" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Demsddems · demms · demss · desm · dmes · edms

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Dems" and "dew" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/dɛmz/ versus /d͡ʒuː/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "Dems" or "dew" show up more?
"Dems" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,032 in our English list, against #14,511 for "dew". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Dems" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dew" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #408,546 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Dems" and "dew" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dew 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 #408,546 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