déliresvsdevisesWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#13,161
“délires” frequency rank
#13,152
“devises” frequency rank
26313
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature délires devises
Definition Pluriel de délire. Pluriel de devise.

Where the eye mixes délires and devises

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

7 ch
délires
7 ch
devises

Why the eye confuses délires with devises

A purely visual mix-up. délires (\de.liʁ\) and devises (\də.viz\) 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 26313, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

délires is recorded at frequency rank #13,161, classified as anoun, pronounced \de.liʁ\. devises is at rank #13,152, tagged as anoun, pronounced \də.viz\.

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 26313, this pair ranks #335,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of délires vs devises

Shared letters: deis. Private to "délires": lré. Private to "devises": v.

"délires" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "devises" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devisesddevises · deivses · deviess · devisess · devisses · devsies · devvises · dveises

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "délires" and "devises" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\de.liʁ\ versus \də.viz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "délires" vs "devises" - which ranks higher?
"devises" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,152 in our French list, against #13,161 for "délires". 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 "délires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devises" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #335,801 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "délires" and "devises" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devins vs devises". 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 #335,801 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