Which to use
“Dean” is a name and “des” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,385
- “Dean” frequency rank
- #10
- “des” frequency rank
- 11395
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Dean | des |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Nom de famille. | Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une. |
Letter map: Dean vs des
Shared letters muted; letters that set Dean and des apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for Dean / des
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Dean is aname and desanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11395, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Dean is recorded at frequency rank #11,385, classified as aname. des is at rank #10, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \de\.
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 11395, this pair ranks #409,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of Dean vs des
Shared letters: de. Private to "Dean": an. Private to "des": s.
"Dean" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "des" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- Dean ← daen · ddean · deann · dena · edan
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "Dean" and "des" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "Dean" or "des"?
After this comparison
You've compared "Dean" and "des". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "Dean" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "des" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #409,306 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Dean" and "des" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dean 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 #409,306 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.