dénué vs dévoué, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#23,187
“dénué” frequency rank: #17,942
“dévoué” frequency rank: 41129
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dénué	dévoué
Definition	Qui est dépourvu du nécessaire.	Qui est disposé à tout faire pour être utile ou agréable à quelqu’un.

Where the eye mixes dénué and dévoué

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

5 ch

dénué

6 ch

dévoué

Visual trap between dénué and dévoué

A purely visual mix-up. dénué (\de.nɥe\) and dévoué (\de.vwe\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41129, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dénué is recorded at frequency rank #23,187, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.nɥe\. 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 41129, this pair ranks #235,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dénué vs dévoué

Shared letters: dué. Private to "dénué": n. Private to "dévoué": ov.

"dénué" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV · "dévoué" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dénué" and "dévoué" be used interchangeably?

No. They are said differently (\de.nɥe\ versus \de.vwe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.

Frequency check: "dénué" vs "dévoué" - which ranks higher?

"dévoué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,942 in our French list, against #23,187 for "dénué". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "dénué" 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 #235,378 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dénué" and "dévoué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs dénué". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #235,378 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.