dermevsdureTell them apart

Which to use

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

#46,692
“derme” frequency rank
#1,912
“dure” frequency rank
48604
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature derme dure
Definition Tissu qui forme la partie la plus épaisse de la peau entre l’épiderme et l'hypoderme. Femme pleine de dureté, insensible ou très sévère.

Where the eye mixes derme and dure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
derme
4 ch
dure

Visual trap between derme and dure

A purely visual mix-up. derme (\dɛʁm\) and dure (\dyʁ\) 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 48604, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

derme is recorded at frequency rank #46,692, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɛʁm\. dure is at rank #1,912, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dyʁ\.

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 48604, this pair ranks #177,567 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of derme vs dure

Shared letters: der. Private to "derme": m. Private to "dure": u.

"derme" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "dure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dermedderme · demre · derem · dermme · derrme · dreme · edrme
  • dureddure · drue · duer · durre · udre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "derme" for "dure" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɛʁm\ versus \dyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "derme" or "dure" show up more?
"dure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,912 in our French list, against #46,692 for "derme". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "derme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #177,567 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "derme" and "dure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs derme". 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 #177,567 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