dèchevsdeckWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,607
“dèche” frequency rank
#27,763
“deck” frequency rank
77370
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dèche deck
Definition Misère, gêne financière. Dessus de planche à roulettes.

Where the eye mixes dèche and deck

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
dèche
4 ch
deck

Look-alike desk: dèche vs deck

A purely visual mix-up. dèche (\dɛʃ\) and deck (\dɛk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77370, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dèche is recorded at frequency rank #49,607, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɛʃ\. deck is at rank #27,763, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɛk\.

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 77370, this pair ranks #28,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dèche vs deck

Shared letters: cde. Private to "dèche": . Private to "deck": k.

"dèche" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "deck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deckdcek · ddeck · decck · deckk · dekc · edck

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dèche" for "deck" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɛʃ\ versus \dɛk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dèche" or "deck" show up more?
"deck" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,763 in our French list, against #49,607 for "dèche". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "dèche" and "deck" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dèche" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "deck" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #28,559 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dèche" and "deck" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs déçues". 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 #28,559 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