Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “délai” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,457
- “dear” frequency rank
- #2,711
- “délai” frequency rank
- 38168
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | délai |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cher, chère. | Temps accordé pour faire une chose, ou à l’expiration duquel on sera tenu de faire une certaine chose. |
Where the eye mixes dear and délai
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dear runs 4 letters (CVVC) against délai's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Why the eye confuses dear with délai
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dear is \ˈdɪɹ\ while délai is \de.lɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38168, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dear is recorded at frequency rank #35,457, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈdɪɹ\. délai is at rank #2,711, 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 38168, this pair ranks #257,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs délai
Shared letters: ad. Private to "dear": er. Private to "délai": ilé.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "délai" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- dear ← ddear · dearr · dera · edar
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dear" and "délai" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "dear" or "délai" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "dear" and "délai" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dear" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "délai" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #257,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "délai" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dear 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 #257,178 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.