décidavsdecideTell them apart

Which to use

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

#9,309
“décida” frequency rank
#30,555
“decide” frequency rank
39864
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature décida decide
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de décider. Décider.

Where the eye mixes décida and decide

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. décida and decide follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
décida
6 ch
decide

Visual trap between décida and decide

A purely visual mix-up. décida (\de.si.da\) and decide (\dɪˈsɑɪd\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

décida is recorded at frequency rank #9,309, classified as averb, pronounced \de.si.da\. decide is at rank #30,555, tagged as averb, pronounced \dɪˈsɑɪd\.

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 39864, this pair ranks #244,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of décida vs decide

Shared letters: cdi. Private to "décida": aé. Private to "decide": e.

"décida" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "decide" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • decide ← dceide · ddecide · deccide · decdie · decidde · decied · deicde · edcide

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "décida" and "decide" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\de.si.da\ versus \dɪˈsɑɪd\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "décida" or "decide" show up more?
"décida" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,309 in our French list, against #30,555 for "decide". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "décida" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "decide" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #244,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "décida" and "decide" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs decide". 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 #244,792 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