damnvsdemConfusable pair

Quick tell: damn is a verb, dem is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“damn” is a verb and “dem” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,507
“damn” frequency rank
#16,107
“dem” frequency rank
39614
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature damn dem
Definition Maudire, damner. démonstration d’un produit pour en faire la promotion.

Letter map: damn vs dem

Shared letters muted; letters that set damn and dem apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
damn
3 ch
dem

Role in the sentence - damn and dem

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: damn is averb and demanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39614, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

damn is recorded at frequency rank #23,507, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈdæm\. dem is at rank #16,107, tagged as anoun.

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 39614, this pair ranks #246,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of damn vs dem

Shared letters: dm. Private to "damn": an. Private to "dem": e.

"damn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dem" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • damnadmn · dammn · damnn · danm · ddamn · dman

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "damn" for "dem" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "damn" is a verb and "dem" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "damn" or "dem" show up more?
"dem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,107 in our French list, against #23,507 for "damn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "damn" vs "dem" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "damn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #246,668 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "damn" and "dem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "damn vs domi". 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 #246,668 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list