Which to use
“demis” is an adjective and “dîmes” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #35,459
- “demis” frequency rank
- #41,760
- “dîmes” frequency rank
- 77219
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | demis | dîmes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Masculin pluriel de demi. | Pluriel de dîme. |
Where the eye mixes demis and dîmes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. demis and dîmes follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: demis vs dîmes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: demis is \də.mi\ while dîmes is \dim\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77219, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
demis is recorded at frequency rank #35,459, classified as anadj, pronounced \də.mi\. 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 77219, this pair ranks #29,012 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of demis vs dîmes
Shared letters: dems. Private to "demis": i. Private to "dîmes": î.
"demis" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC · "dîmes" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- demis ← ddemis · deims · demiss · demmis · demsi · dmeis · edmis
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "demis" and "dîmes" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "demis" vs "dîmes" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "demis" 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 #29,012 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "demis" 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 #29,012 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.