dealsvsdélaisWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#36,347
“deals” frequency rank
#5,551
“délais” frequency rank
41898
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deals délais
Definition Pluriel de deal. Pluriel de délai.

Where the eye mixes deals and délais

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. deals runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against délais's 6 (CVCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
deals
6 ch
délais

Why the eye confuses deals with délais

A purely visual mix-up. deals (\dil\) and délais (\de.lɛ\) 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 41898, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deals is recorded at frequency rank #36,347, classified as anoun, pronounced \dil\. délais is at rank #5,551, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.lɛ\.

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 41898, this pair ranks #229,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deals vs délais

Shared letters: adls. Private to "deals": e. Private to "délais": ié.

"deals" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "délais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deals ← daels · ddeals · dealls · dealss · deasl · delas · edals

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deals" for "délais" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dil\ versus \de.lɛ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "deals" or "délais"?
"délais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,551 in our French list, against #36,347 for "deals". 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 "deals" and "délais" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deals" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "délais" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #229,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deals" and "délais" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Daly vs deals". 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 #229,736 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