Which to use
“dément” is an adjective and “dorment” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,364
- “dément” frequency rank
- #12,551
- “dorment” frequency rank
- 25915
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dément | dorment |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Qui est dans l’état de démence. | Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de dormir. |
Where the eye mixes dément and dorment
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. dément runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against dorment's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between dément and dorment
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dément is \de.mɑ̃\ while dorment is \dɔʁm\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25915, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dément is recorded at frequency rank #13,364, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.mɑ̃\. dorment is at rank #12,551, tagged as averb, pronounced \dɔʁm\.
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 25915, this pair ranks #338,153 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of dément vs dorment
Shared letters: demnt. Private to "dément": é. Private to "dorment": or.
"dément" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "dorment" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dorment ← ddorment · domrent · doremnt · dormennt · dormentt · dormetn · dormment · dormnet
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dément" for "dorment" ever safe?
Which is more common, "dément" or "dorment"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "dément" and "dorment" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dément" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dorment" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #338,153 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dément" and "dorment" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déforment vs dorment". 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 #338,153 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.