DavisvsdévieWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Davis is a name, dévie is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Davis” is a name and “dévie” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,491
“Davis” frequency rank
#35,008
“dévie” frequency rank
41499
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Davis dévie
Definition Nom de famille anglophone. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de dévier.

Letter map: Davis vs dévie

Shared letters muted; letters that set Davis and dévie apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
Davis
5 ch
dévie

Grammar separator: Davis vs dévie

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Davis is aname and dévieaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41499, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Davis is recorded at frequency rank #6,491, classified as aname. dévie is at rank #35,008, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.vi\.

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 41499, this pair ranks #232,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Davis vs dévie

Shared letters: div. Private to "Davis": as. Private to "dévie": .

"Davis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dévie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Davisadvis · daivs · daviss · davsi · davvis · ddavis · dvais

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Davis" and "dévie" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Davis" is a name and "dévie" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "Davis" or "dévie" show up more?
"Davis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,491 in our French list, against #35,008 for "dévie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Davis" and "dévie". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Davis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #232,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Davis" and "dévie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs dévie". 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 #232,647 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