dedansvsdevinsTell them apart

Quick tell: dedans is a adverb, devins is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dedans” is an adverb and “devins” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,327
“dedans” frequency rank
#47,827
“devins” frequency rank
49154
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dedans devins
Definition À l’intérieur. Dans la place dont on vient de parler. Pluriel de devin.

Where the eye mixes dedans and devins

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
dedans
6 ch
devins

Look-alike desk: dedans vs devins

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dedans is \də.dɑ̃\ while devins is \də.vɛ̃\. 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 (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49154, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dedans is recorded at frequency rank #1,327, classified as anadv, pronounced \də.dɑ̃\. devins is at rank #47,827, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.vɛ̃\.

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 49154, this pair ranks #173,018 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dedans vs devins

Shared letters: dens. Private to "dedans": a. Private to "devins": iv.

"dedans" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "devins" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dedansddeans · ddedans · deadns · dedanns · dedanss · dedasn · deddans · dednas
  • devinsddevins · deivns · devinns · devinss · devisn · devnis · devvins · dveins

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dedans" for "devins" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dedans" is an adverb and "devins" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dedans" vs "devins" - which ranks higher?
"dedans" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,327 in our French list, against #47,827 for "devins". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dedans" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devins" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,018 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dedans" and "devins" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déviants vs devins". 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 #173,018 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