Which to use
“dear” is an adjective and “deng” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,457
- “dear” frequency rank
- #42,277
- “deng” frequency rank
- 77734
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dear | deng |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Cher, chère. | Ta, la tienne. |
Where the eye mixes dear and deng
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dear (CVVC) and deng (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: dear vs deng
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dear is \ˈdɪɹ\ while deng is \dˈeŋ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77734, 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\. deng is at rank #42,277, tagged as apron, pronounced \dˈeŋ\.
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 77734, this pair ranks #27,600 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dear vs deng
Shared letters: de. Private to "dear": ar. Private to "deng": gn.
"dear" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "deng" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dear" and "deng" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "dear" or "deng"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "dear" and "deng" 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 "deng" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #27,600 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dear" and "deng" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deng vs denim". 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 #27,600 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.