délirervsdevinerConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#36,817
“délirer” frequency rank
#7,420
“deviner” frequency rank
44237
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature délirer deviner
Definition Avoir le délire ; être en délire. Prédire ce qui doit arriver, découvrir, par des sortilèges, ce qui est caché.

Where the eye mixes délirer and deviner

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

7 ch
délirer
7 ch
deviner

Why the eye confuses délirer with deviner

A purely visual mix-up. délirer (\de.li.ʁe\) and deviner (\də.vi.ne\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44237, 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\. deviner is at rank #7,420, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vi.ne\.

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 44237, this pair ranks #212,012 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of délirer vs deviner

Shared letters: deir. Private to "délirer": lé. Private to "deviner": nv.

"délirer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "deviner" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deviner ← ddeviner · deivner · devienr · devinerr · devinner · devinre · devnier · devviner

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "délirer" for "deviner" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\de.li.ʁe\ versus \də.vi.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "délirer" vs "deviner" - which ranks higher?
"deviner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,420 in our French list, against #36,817 for "délirer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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 "deviner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,012 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "délirer" and "deviner" 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 #212,012 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