Which to use
“degas” is a verb and “dégel” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,742
- “degas” frequency rank
- #34,070
- “dégel” frequency rank
- 73812
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | degas | dégel |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Enlever le gaz de. | Fonte naturelle de la glace et de la neige par l’adoucissement de la température, qui remonte au-dessus de zéro degrés Celsius. |
Where the eye mixes degas and dégel
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. degas and dégel follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses degas with dégel
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: degas is \ˈde.ɡaz\ while dégel is \de.ʒɛl\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73812, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
degas is recorded at frequency rank #39,742, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈde.ɡaz\. dégel is at rank #34,070, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.ʒɛl\.
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 73812, this pair ranks #39,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of degas vs dégel
Shared letters: deg. Private to "degas": as. Private to "dégel": lé.
"degas" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "dégel" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- degas ← ddegas · deags · degass · deggas · degsa · dgeas · edgas
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "degas" for "dégel" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "degas" or "dégel" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "degas" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dégel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #39,178 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "degas" and "dégel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "degas vs DGA". 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 #39,178 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.