devsdoveTell them apart

Quick tell: de is a preposition, dove is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“de” is a preposition and “dove” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1
“de” frequency rank
#35,471
“dove” frequency rank
35472
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature de dove
Definition Marque un ablatif. Mot indiquant la provenance, l’origine ^([note 1]). Douve.

Letter map: de vs dove

Shared letters muted; letters that set de and dove apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
de
4 ch
dove

Grammar separator: de vs dove

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: de is apreposition and doveanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35472, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

de is recorded at frequency rank #1, classified as aprep, pronounced \də\. dove is at rank #35,471, 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 35472, this pair ranks #276,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of de vs dove

Shared letters: de. Private to "de": -. Private to "dove": ov.

"de" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "dove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doveddove · doev · dovve · dvoe · odve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "de" and "dove" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "de" is a preposition and "dove" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "de" or "dove"?
"de" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1 in our French list, against #35,471 for "dove". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "de" vs "dove" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "de" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dove" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #276,525 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "de" and "dove" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs dove". 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 #276,525 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