Which to use
“délirer” and “désirer” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #36,817
- “délirer” frequency rank
- #13,581
- “désirer” frequency rank
- 50398
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | délirer | désirer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Avoir le délire ; être en délire. | Vouloir posséder un bien ou un avantage qu’on n’a pas. |
Where the eye mixes délirer and désirer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. délirer and désirer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between délirer and désirer
A purely visual mix-up. délirer (\de.li.ʁe\) and désirer (\de.zi.ʁe\) 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 a single letter - l in “délirer” becomes s in “désirer”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50398, 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\. désirer is at rank #13,581, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.zi.ʁe\.
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 50398, this pair ranks #162,973 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of délirer vs désirer
Shared letters: deiré. Private to "délirer": l. Private to "désirer": s.
"délirer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC · "désirer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "délirer" and "désirer" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "délirer" or "désirer" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "délirer" and "désirer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "délirer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "désirer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #162,973 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "délirer" and "désirer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "délier vs délirer". Nearby pair
Confusion rank #162,973 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.