dégainevsdevineWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#29,740
“dégaine” frequency rank
#10,485
“devine” frequency rank
40225
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dégaine devine
Definition Tournure ; façon de se tenir ; allure. Variante de devineresse.

Where the eye mixes dégaine and devine

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. dégaine runs 7 letters (CVCVVCV) against devine's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
dégaine
6 ch
devine

Why the eye confuses dégaine with devine

A purely visual mix-up. dégaine (\de.ɡɛn\) and devine (\də.vin\) 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 40225, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dégaine is recorded at frequency rank #29,740, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.ɡɛn\. devine is at rank #10,485, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.vin\.

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 40225, this pair ranks #242,093 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dégaine vs devine

Shared letters: dein. Private to "dégaine": agé. Private to "devine": v.

"dégaine" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV  ·  "devine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devine ← ddevine · deivne · devien · devinne · devnie · devvine · dveine · edvine

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dégaine" and "devine" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\de.ɡɛn\ versus \də.vin\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dégaine" vs "devine" - which ranks higher?
"devine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,485 in our French list, against #29,740 for "dégaine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dégaine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #242,093 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dégaine" and "devine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dégaine vs draine". 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 #242,093 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