devait
\də.vɛ\
The verdict
“devait” is in the everyday core of French, ranked #871 in French word frequency and used as a verb.
- #871
- frequency rank, French
- 6
- letters
- 8
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de devoir.
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 | devait |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | \də.vɛ\ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #871 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “devait” sits in French frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The French entry for devait is 6 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \də.vɛ\. Corpus data places it at rank #871 in overall French word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de devoir.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 8 likely wrong-spelling variants for devait, with forms such as "ddevait", "deavit", and "devaitt". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "devis", "devin", "devil", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is devait, spelled D-E-V-A-I-T.
Definition
- 1Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de devoir.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddevait,deavit,devaitt,devati,deviat,devvait,dveait,edvait
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of devait - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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
How do you spell "devait"?
What does "devait" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "devait"?
How do you pronounce "devait"?
What language does "devait" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “devait”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is D-E-V-A-I-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \də.vɛ\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “devis” - see the side-by-side comparison. devait vs devis
- 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.