Which to use
“de” is a preposition and “des” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1
- “de” frequency rank
- #10
- “des” frequency rank
- 11
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | de | des |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Marque un ablatif. Mot indiquant la provenance, l’origine ^([note 1]). | Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une. |
Where the eye mixes de and des
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: de is \də\ while des is \de\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “de” sits inside “des”, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
de is recorded at frequency rank #1, classified as aprep, pronounced \də\. des is at rank #10, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \de\.
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 11, this pair ranks #440,167 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of de vs des
Shared letters: de. Private to "de": -. Private to "des": s.
"de" · 2 letters · shape CV · "des" · 3 letters · shape CVC