Which to use
“décides” is a verb and “dociles” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #18,995
- “décides” frequency rank
- #40,716
- “dociles” frequency rank
- 59711
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | décides | dociles |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Deuxième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de décider. | Pluriel de docile. |
Where the eye mixes décides and dociles
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. décides and dociles follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: décides vs dociles
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: décides is \de.sid\ while dociles is \dɔ.sil\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 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 59711, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
décides is recorded at frequency rank #18,995, classified as averb, pronounced \de.sid\. dociles is at rank #40,716, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɔ.sil\.
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 59711, this pair ranks #101,607 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of décides vs dociles
Shared letters: cdeis. Private to "décides": é. Private to "dociles": lo.
"décides" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "dociles" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dociles ← dcoiles · ddociles · docciles · dociels · dociless · docilles · docilse · doclies
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "décides" for "dociles" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "décides" or "dociles" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "décides" and "dociles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "décides" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dociles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #101,607 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "décides" and "dociles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dociles vs domiciles". 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 #101,607 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.