Which to use
“dédain” is a noun and “devait” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,783
- “dédain” frequency rank
- #871
- “devait” frequency rank
- 28654
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dédain | devait |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Mépris exprimé par l’air, le ton ou le maintien. | Troisième personne du singulier de l’imparfait de devoir. |
Where the eye mixes dédain and devait
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dédain and devait follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: dédain vs devait
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dédain is \de.dɛ̃\ while devait is \də.vɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28654, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dédain is recorded at frequency rank #27,783, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.dɛ̃\. devait is at rank #871, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vɛ\.
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 28654, this pair ranks #321,489 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dédain vs devait
Shared letters: adi. Private to "dédain": né. Private to "devait": etv.
"dédain" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC · "devait" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- devait ← ddevait · deavit · devaitt · devati · deviat · devvait · dveait · edvait
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dédain" for "devait" ever safe?
Which is more common, "dédain" or "devait"?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "dédain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "devait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #321,489 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dédain" and "devait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dédain vs detail". 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 #321,489 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.