dentvsdevintTell them apart

Quick tell: dent is a noun, devint is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dent” is a noun and “devint” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,965
“dent” frequency rank
#5,122
“devint” frequency rank
11087
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dent devint
Definition Petit organe composé d’émail, de dentine et d’une pulpe, enchâssés dans la mâchoire, qui sert à inciser, à déchirer, à mâcher les aliments et à mordre. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de devenir.

Where the eye mixes dent and devint

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

4 ch
dent
6 ch
devint

Why the eye confuses dent with devint

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dent is \dɑ̃\ while devint is \də.vɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dent is recorded at frequency rank #5,965, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃\. devint is at rank #5,122, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vɛ̃\.

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 11087, this pair ranks #410,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dent vs devint

Shared letters: dent. Private to "dent": -. Private to "devint": iv.

"dent" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "devint" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dentddent · dennt · dentt · detn · dnet · ednt
  • devintddevint · deivnt · devinnt · devintt · devitn · devnit · devvint · dveint

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dent" and "devint" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dent" is a noun and "devint" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "dent" or "devint" show up more?
"devint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,122 in our French list, against #5,965 for "dent". 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 "dent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #410,509 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dent" and "devint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "denim vs dent". 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 #410,509 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