des
\de\
The verdict
“des” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #10 in French word frequency and used as an article.
- #10
- frequency rank, French
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | des |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Article |
| IPA | \de\ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “des” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for des is 3 letters long, classified as an article, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \de\. Corpus data places it at rank #10 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for des, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "du", "dr", "di", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct French form is des, spelled D-E-S.
Definition
- 1Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “des”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \de\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “du” - see the side-by-side comparison. des vs du
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.