deavsdeathWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#19,801
“dea” frequency rank
#13,563
“death” frequency rank
33364
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dea death
Definition Manger chez quelqu’un, de quelque chose. La mort.

Letter map: dea vs death

Shared letters muted; letters that set dea and death apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
dea
5 ch
death

Part-of-speech tell for dea / death

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dea is averb and deathanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “dea” sits inside “death”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33364, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dea is recorded at frequency rank #19,801, classified as averb. death is at rank #13,563, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɛθ\.

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 33364, this pair ranks #291,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dea vs death

Shared letters: ade. Private to "dea": -. Private to "death": ht.

"dea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "death" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deathdaeth · ddeath · deaht · deathh · deatth · detah · edath

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dea" and "death" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dea" is a verb and "death" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dea" or "death"?
"death" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,563 in our French list, against #19,801 for "dea". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "dea" vs "death" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "death" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #291,115 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dea" and "death" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dea vs dray". 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 #291,115 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