dénouervsdévouéTell them apart

Quick tell: dénouer is a verb, dévoué is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dénouer” is a verb and “dévoué” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,273
“dénouer” frequency rank
#17,942
“dévoué” frequency rank
57215
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dénouer dévoué
Definition Défaire ce qui forme un nœud, ce qui est noué, ou ce qui est retenu par un nœud. Qui est disposé à tout faire pour être utile ou agréable à quelqu’un.

Where the eye mixes dénouer and dévoué

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

7 ch
dénouer
6 ch
dévoué

Look-alike desk: dénouer vs dévoué

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dénouer is \de.nwe\ while dévoué is \de.vwe\. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57215, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dénouer is recorded at frequency rank #39,273, classified as averb, pronounced \de.nwe\. dévoué is at rank #17,942, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.vwe\.

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 57215, this pair ranks #116,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dénouer vs dévoué

Shared letters: doué. Private to "dénouer": enr. Private to "dévoué": v.

"dénouer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC  ·  "dévoué" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dénouer" and "dévoué" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dénouer" is a verb and "dévoué" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dénouer" or "dévoué" show up more?
"dévoué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,942 in our French list, against #39,273 for "dénouer". 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 "dénouer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévoué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #116,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dénouer" and "dévoué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dénouer vs dérouter". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #116,358 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