decovsdevonWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#26,324
“deco” frequency rank
#24,540
“devon” frequency rank
50864
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deco devon
Definition Décence. Poisson artificiel servant d’appât.

Where the eye mixes deco and devon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
deco
5 ch
devon

Visual trap between deco and devon

A purely visual mix-up. deco (\ˈdɛ.ʦɔ\) and devon (\də.vɔ̃\) 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 50864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deco is recorded at frequency rank #26,324, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdɛ.ʦɔ\. devon is at rank #24,540, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.vɔ̃\.

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 50864, this pair ranks #159,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deco vs devon

Shared letters: deo. Private to "deco": c. Private to "devon": nv.

"deco" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "devon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • decodceo · ddeco · decco · deoc · edco
  • devonddevon · deovn · devno · devonn · devvon · dveon · edvon

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "deco" for "devon" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdɛ.ʦɔ\ versus \də.vɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "deco" vs "devon" - which ranks higher?
"devon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,540 in our French list, against #26,324 for "deco". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deco" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #159,341 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deco" and "devon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs deco". 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 #159,341 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