débitévsdeleteConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#41,236
“débité” frequency rank
#42,817
“delete” frequency rank
84053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature débité delete
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de débiter. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de deleter.

Where the eye mixes débité and delete

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. débité and delete follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
débité
6 ch
delete

Look-alike desk: débité vs delete

A purely visual mix-up. débité (\de.bi.te\) and delete (\di.lit\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

débité is recorded at frequency rank #41,236, classified as averb, pronounced \de.bi.te\. delete is at rank #42,817, tagged as averb, pronounced \di.lit\.

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 84053, this pair ranks #13,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of débité vs delete

Shared letters: dt. Private to "débité": bié. Private to "delete": el.

"débité" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "delete" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delete ← ddelete · deelte · deleet · delette · dellete · deltee · dleete · edlete

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "débité" for "delete" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\de.bi.te\ versus \di.lit\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "débité" or "delete"?
"débité" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,236 in our French list, against #42,817 for "delete". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "débité" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "delete" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #13,670 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "débité" and "delete" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "delete vs désuète". 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 #13,670 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