denguevsdenréeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,413
“dengue” frequency rank
#36,348
“denrée” frequency rank
80761
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dengue denrée
Definition Maladie virale endémique dans les pays tropicaux causée par les virus de type flavivirus. Tout ce qui se vend pour la nourriture des hommes ou des animaux.

Where the eye mixes dengue and denrée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. dengue and denrée follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
dengue
6 ch
denrée

Visual trap between dengue and denrée

A purely visual mix-up. dengue (\dɛ̃ɡ\) and denrée (\dɑ̃.ʁe\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 80761, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dengue is recorded at frequency rank #44,413, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɛ̃ɡ\. denrée is at rank #36,348, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃.ʁe\.

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 80761, this pair ranks #20,205 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dengue vs denrée

Shared letters: den. Private to "dengue": gu. Private to "denrée": ré.

"dengue" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "denrée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dengue ← ddengue · degnue · dengeu · denggue · denngue · denuge · dnegue · edngue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dengue" for "denrée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɛ̃ɡ\ versus \dɑ̃.ʁe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dengue" or "denrée"?
"denrée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,348 in our French list, against #44,413 for "dengue". 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 "dengue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "denrée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #20,205 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dengue" and "denrée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dengue vs dénués". 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 #20,205 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