dei vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“dei” is a noun and “du” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,767
“dei” frequency rank: #17
“du” frequency rank: 13784
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dei	du
Definition	Appel, convocation.	Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.

Letter map: dei vs du

Shared letters muted; letters that set dei and du apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

dei

2 ch

Role in the sentence - dei and du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dei is anoun and duanarticle. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13784, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dei is recorded at frequency rank #13,767, classified as anoun. du is at rank #17, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \dy\.

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 13784, this pair ranks #399,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dei vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "dei": ei. Private to "du": u.

"dei" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dei" and "du" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dei" is a noun and "du" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary French text, does "dei" or "du" show up more?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17 in our French list, against #13,767 for "dei". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pair "dei" vs "du" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

Full dictionary entry for "dei" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #399,551 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dei" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dei vs denim". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #399,551 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.