des vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#10
“des” frequency rank: #17
“du” frequency rank: 27
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	des	du
Definition	Article indéfini du pluriel. C’est ainsi le pluriel de un ou une.	Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.

Where the eye mixes des and du

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

des

2 ch

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. des (\de\) and du (\dy\) 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 27, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

des is recorded at frequency rank #10, classified as anarticle, pronounced \de\. du is at rank #17, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \dy\.

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 27, this pair ranks #440,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of des vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "des": es. Private to "du": u.

"des" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "des" and "du" be used interchangeably?

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

Which is more common, "des" or "du"?

"des" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10 in our French list, against #17 for "du". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "des" and "du". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "des" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #440,159 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"des" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs du". Nearby pair

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.