DelorsvsdévoreWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Delors is a name, dévore is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Delors” is a name and “dévore” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,543
“Delors” frequency rank
#22,838
“dévore” frequency rank
68381
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Delors dévore
Definition Nom de famille. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de dévorer.

Where the eye mixes Delors and dévore

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Delors
6 ch
dévore

Why the eye confuses Delors with dévore

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Delors is \də.lɔʁ\ while dévore is \de.vɔʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68381, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Delors is recorded at frequency rank #45,543, classified as aname, pronounced \də.lɔʁ\. dévore is at rank #22,838, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.vɔʁ\.

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 68381, this pair ranks #59,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Delors vs dévore

Shared letters: deor. Private to "Delors": ls. Private to "dévore": .

"Delors" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "dévore" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Delorsddelors · dellors · delorrs · delorss · delosr · delros · deolrs · dleors

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Delors" for "dévore" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Delors" is a name and "dévore" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Delors" vs "dévore" - which ranks higher?
"dévore" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,838 in our French list, against #45,543 for "Delors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Delors" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévore" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,415 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Delors" and "dévore" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Delors vs Demers". 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 #59,415 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