DemersvsdîmesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Demers is a name, dîmes is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Demers” is a name and “dîmes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#42,818
“Demers” frequency rank
#41,760
“dîmes” frequency rank
84578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Demers dîmes
Definition Nom de famille. Pluriel de dîme.

Where the eye mixes Demers and dîmes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Demers runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against dîmes's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
Demers
5 ch
dîmes

Look-alike desk: Demers vs dîmes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Demers is \də.mɛʁs\ while dîmes is \dim\. 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 (name vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Demers is recorded at frequency rank #42,818, classified as aname, pronounced \də.mɛʁs\. dîmes is at rank #41,760, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dim\.

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 84578, this pair ranks #12,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Demers vs dîmes

Shared letters: dems. Private to "Demers": r. Private to "dîmes": î.

"Demers" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "dîmes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Demersddemers · deemrs · demerrs · demerss · demesr · demmers · demres · dmeers

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Demers" for "dîmes" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Demers" is a name and "dîmes" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Demers" vs "dîmes" - which ranks higher?
"dîmes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #41,760 in our French list, against #42,818 for "Demers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Demers" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dîmes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,730 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Demers" and "dîmes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diez vs dîmes". 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 #12,730 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