Which to use
“délirer” is a verb and “desire” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #36,817
- “délirer” frequency rank
- #28,129
- “desire” frequency rank
- 64946
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | délirer | desire |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Avoir le délire ; être en délire. | Désir (1, 2, 3), souhait, volonté. |
Where the eye mixes délirer and desire
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. délirer runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against desire's 6 (CVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: délirer vs desire
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: délirer is \de.li.ʁe\ while desire is \dɪ.ˈzaɪ.əʳ\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64946, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
délirer is recorded at frequency rank #36,817, classified as averb, pronounced \de.li.ʁe\. desire is at rank #28,129, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɪ.ˈzaɪ.əʳ\.
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 64946, this pair ranks #74,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of délirer vs desire
Shared letters: deir. Private to "délirer": lé. Private to "desire": s.
"délirer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "desire" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- desire ← ddesire · deisre · desier · desirre · desrie · dessire · dseire · edsire
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "délirer" and "desire" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "délirer" vs "desire" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "délirer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "desire" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #74,601 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "délirer" and "desire" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délier vs délirer". 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 #74,601 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.