deavsduTell them apart

Quick tell: dea is a verb, du is an article, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#19,801
“dea” frequency rank
#17
“du” frequency rank
19818
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dea du
Definition Manger chez quelqu’un, de quelque chose. Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.

Letter map: dea vs du

Shared letters muted; letters that set dea and du apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
dea
2 ch
du

Grammar separator: dea vs du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dea is averb and duanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19818, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dea is recorded at frequency rank #19,801, classified as averb. du is at rank #17, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \dy\.

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 19818, this pair ranks #371,381 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dea vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "dea": ae. Private to "du": u.

"dea" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dea" for "du" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dea" is a verb and "du" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dea" vs "du" - which ranks higher?
"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17 in our French list, against #19,801 for "dea". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dea" and "du".

  • Full dictionary entry for "dea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #371,381 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dea" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dea vs dray". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #371,381 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