dealvsDexTell them apart

Which to use

“deal” and “Dex” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,982
“deal” frequency rank
#43,878
“Dex” frequency rank
52860
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deal Dex
Definition Accord, marché, informel. Dieu

Where the eye mixes deal and Dex

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. deal runs 4 letters (CVVC) against Dex's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
deal
3 ch
Dex

Visual trap between deal and Dex

A purely visual mix-up. deal (\dil\) and Dex (\'de.us\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52860, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deal is recorded at frequency rank #8,982, classified as anoun, pronounced \dil\. Dex is at rank #43,878, tagged as anoun, pronounced \'de.us\.

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 52860, this pair ranks #144,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deal vs Dex

Shared letters: de. Private to "deal": al. Private to "Dex": x.

"deal" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Dex" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deal ← dael · ddeal · deall · edal

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deal" for "Dex" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dil\ versus \'de.us\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "deal" or "Dex" show up more?
"deal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,982 in our French list, against #43,878 for "Dex". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "deal" and "Dex" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Dex" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #144,756 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deal" and "Dex" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs Dex". 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 #144,756 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