dénouervsdévouéeConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#39,273
“dénouer” frequency rank
#25,296
“dévouée” frequency rank
64569
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dénouer dévouée
Definition Défaire ce qui forme un nœud, ce qui est noué, ou ce qui est retenu par un nœud. Féminin singulier de dévoué.

Where the eye mixes dénouer and dévouée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
dénouer
7 ch
dévouée

Look-alike desk: dénouer vs dévouée

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dénouer is \de.nwe\ while dévouée is \de.vwe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64569, 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\. dévouée is at rank #25,296, 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 64569, this pair ranks #76,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dénouer vs dévouée

Shared letters: deoué. Private to "dénouer": nr. Private to "dévouée": v.

"dénouer" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC  ·  "dévouée" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dénouer" and "dévouée" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dénouer" is a verb and "dévouée" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dénouer" or "dévouée" show up more?
"dévouée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,296 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.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "dénouer" and "dévouée" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dénouer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévouée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #76,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dénouer" and "dévouée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dénouer vs dérouter". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #76,427 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