DelhivsdemiWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#16,590
“Delhi” frequency rank
#736
“demi” frequency rank
17326
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Delhi demi
Definition Ville de l’Inde, administrativement un des sept territoires de ce pays, située sur les bords de la rivière Yamuna, placée sur les routes de commerce du nord-ouest de la plaine du Gange. Moitié d’unité.

Where the eye mixes Delhi and demi

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

5 ch
Delhi
4 ch
demi

Why the eye confuses Delhi with demi

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Delhi is \de.li\ while demi is \də.mi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 17326, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Delhi is recorded at frequency rank #16,590, classified as aname, pronounced \de.li\. demi is at rank #736, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.mi\.

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 17326, this pair ranks #383,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Delhi vs demi

Shared letters: dei. Private to "Delhi": hl. Private to "demi": m.

"Delhi" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "demi" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Delhiddelhi · dehli · delhhi · delih · dellhi · dlehi · edlhi
  • demiddemi · deim · demmi · dmei · edmi

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Delhi" and "demi" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Delhi" is a name and "demi" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Delhi" vs "demi" - which ranks higher?
"demi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #736 in our French list, against #16,590 for "Delhi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Delhi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "demi" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #383,725 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Delhi" and "demi" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs Delhi". 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 #383,725 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