Which to use
“décès” is a noun and “dites” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,037
- “décès” frequency rank
- #1,409
- “dites” frequency rank
- 3446
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | décès | dites |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mort naturelle d’une personne. | Participe passé féminin pluriel du verbe dire. |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set décès and dites apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: décès is \de.sɛ\ while dites is \dit\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 3446, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
décès is recorded at frequency rank #2,037, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.sɛ\. dites is at rank #1,409, tagged as averb, pronounced \dit\.
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 3446, this pair ranks #434,006 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of décès vs dites
Shared letters: ds. Private to "décès": cèé. Private to "dites": eit.
"décès" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "dites" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dites ← ddites · diets · ditess · ditse · dittes · dties · idtes