Which to use
“dehors” is an adverb and “Delors” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #935
- “dehors” frequency rank
- #45,543
- “Delors” frequency rank
- 46478
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dehors | Delors |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | À l’extérieur. | Nom de famille. |
Where the eye mixes dehors and Delors
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. dehors and Delors follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses dehors with Delors
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dehors is \də.ɔʁ\ while Delors is \də.lɔʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - h in “dehors” becomes l in “Delors”, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46478, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dehors is recorded at frequency rank #935, classified as anadv, pronounced \də.ɔʁ\. Delors is at rank #45,543, tagged as aname, pronounced \də.lɔʁ\.
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 46478, this pair ranks #194,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dehors vs Delors
Shared letters: deors. Private to "dehors": h. Private to "Delors": l.
"dehors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "Delors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dehors" and "Delors" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "dehors" or "Delors"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "dehors" and "Delors" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dehors" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Delors" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #194,618 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dehors" and "Delors" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Delors vs Demers". 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 #194,618 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.