déliervsdériverTell them apart

Which to use

“délier” and “dériver” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,997
“délier” frequency rank
#25,632
“dériver” frequency rank
70629
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature délier dériver
Definition Dégager de ce qui lie. Détourner un cours d’eau.

Where the eye mixes délier and dériver

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. délier runs 6 letters (CVCVVC) against dériver's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
délier
7 ch
dériver

Visual trap between délier and dériver

A purely visual mix-up. délier (\de.lje\) and dériver (\de.ʁi.ve\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70629, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

délier is recorded at frequency rank #44,997, classified as averb, pronounced \de.lje\. dériver is at rank #25,632, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.ʁi.ve\.

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 70629, this pair ranks #50,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of délier vs dériver

Shared letters: deiré. Private to "délier": l. Private to "dériver": v.

"délier" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "dériver" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "délier" and "dériver" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\de.lje\ versus \de.ʁi.ve\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "délier" or "dériver"?
"dériver" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,632 in our French list, against #44,997 for "délier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "délier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dériver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #50,658 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "délier" and "dériver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délier vs déviée". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #50,658 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