délaisvsDelorsConfusable pair

Quick tell: délais is a noun, Delors is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“délais” is a noun and “Delors” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,551
“délais” frequency rank
#45,543
“Delors” frequency rank
51094
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature délais Delors
Definition Pluriel de délai. Nom de famille.

Where the eye mixes délais and Delors

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
délais
6 ch
Delors

Look-alike desk: délais vs Delors

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: délais is \de.lɛ\ while Delors is \də.lɔʁ\. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51094, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

délais is recorded at frequency rank #5,551, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.lɛ\. 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 51094, this pair ranks #157,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of délais vs Delors

Shared letters: dls. Private to "délais": aié. Private to "Delors": eor.

"délais" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "Delors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Delorsddelors · dellors · delorrs · delorss · delosr · delros · deolrs · dleors

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "délais" and "Delors" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "délais" is a noun and "Delors" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "délais" or "Delors" show up more?
"délais" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,551 in our French list, against #45,543 for "Delors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "délais" 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 #157,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "délais" 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 #157,645 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