Which to use
“deny” is a verb and “dew” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #4,013
- “deny” frequency rank
- #14,511
- “dew” frequency rank
- 18524
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | deny | dew |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | To disallow or reject. | Any moisture from the atmosphere condensed by cool bodies upon their surfaces. |
Where the eye mixes deny and dew
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: deny is /dɪˈnaɪ/ while dew is /d͡ʒuː/. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18524, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
deny is recorded at frequency rank #4,013, classified as averb, pronounced /dɪˈnaɪ/. 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 18524, this pair ranks #444,297 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of deny vs dew
Shared letters: de. Private to "deny": ny. Private to "dew": w.
"deny" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "dew" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- deny ← ddeny · denny · denyy · deyn · dney · edny