déliervsdiluerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#44,997
“délier” frequency rank
#28,915
“diluer” frequency rank
73912
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature délier diluer
Definition Dégager de ce qui lie. Étendre d’eau ou d’un solvant adapté, un liquide quelconque.

Where the eye mixes délier and diluer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. délier and diluer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
délier
6 ch
diluer

Visual trap between délier and diluer

A purely visual mix-up. délier (\de.lje\) and diluer (\di.lɥe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73912, 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\. diluer is at rank #28,915, tagged as averb, pronounced \di.lɥe\.

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 73912, this pair ranks #38,895 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of délier vs diluer

Shared letters: deilr. Private to "délier": é. Private to "diluer": u.

"délier" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "diluer" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • diluer ← ddiluer · dileur · dilluer · diluerr · dilure · diuler · dliuer · idluer

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "délier" and "diluer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\de.lje\ versus \di.lɥe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "délier" vs "diluer" - which ranks higher?
"diluer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,915 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.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "délier" and "diluer" 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 "diluer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #38,895 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "délier" and "diluer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délier vs déviée". 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 #38,895 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