decidevsdémodéTell them apart

Quick tell: decide is a verb, démodé is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“decide” is a verb and “démodé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,555
“decide” frequency rank
#34,998
“démodé” frequency rank
65553
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature decide démodé
Definition Décider. Qui a cessé d’être à la mode.

Where the eye mixes decide and démodé

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

6 ch
decide
6 ch
démodé

Look-alike desk: decide vs démodé

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: decide is \dɪˈsɑɪd\ while démodé is \de.mɔ.de\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65553, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

decide is recorded at frequency rank #30,555, classified as averb, pronounced \dɪˈsɑɪd\. démodé is at rank #34,998, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.mɔ.de\.

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 65553, this pair ranks #71,812 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of decide vs démodé

Shared letters: d. Private to "decide": cei. Private to "démodé": moé.

"decide" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "démodé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • decidedceide · ddecide · deccide · decdie · decidde · decied · deicde · edcide

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "decide" and "démodé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "decide" is a verb and "démodé" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "decide" or "démodé"?
"decide" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,555 in our French list, against #34,998 for "démodé". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "decide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "démodé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #71,812 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "decide" and "démodé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "démodé vs diode". 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 #71,812 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