déléguervsdéléguésWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: déléguer is a verb, délégués is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“déléguer” is a verb and “délégués” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,193
“déléguer” frequency rank
#8,231
“délégués” frequency rank
32424
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature déléguer délégués
Definition Députer, commettre, envoyer quelqu’un avec pouvoir d’agir, d’examiner, de juger, de négocier, etc. Masculin pluriel de délégué.

Same sound, different letters: déléguer vs délégués

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. déléguer and délégués follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

8 ch
déléguer
8 ch
délégués

Same sound, different spelling - déléguer / délégués

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: déléguer and délégués carry the same recorded pronunciation, \de.le.ɡe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32424, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

déléguer is recorded at frequency rank #24,193, classified as averb, pronounced \de.le.ɡe\. délégués is at rank #8,231, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.le.ɡe\.

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 32424, this pair ranks #297,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of déléguer vs délégués

Shared letters: dglué. Private to "déléguer": er. Private to "délégués": s.

"déléguer" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC  ·  "délégués" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "déléguer" and "délégués" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "déléguer" is a verb and "délégués" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "déléguer" or "délégués"?
"délégués" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,231 in our French list, against #24,193 for "déléguer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've separated the homophone pair "déléguer" / "délégués". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "déléguer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "délégués" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #297,384 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "déléguer" and "délégués" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déléguer vs déloger". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #297,384 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