Which to use
“designs” and “désirs” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,219
- “designs” frequency rank
- #7,819
- “désirs” frequency rank
- 49038
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | designs | désirs |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pluriel de design. | Pluriel de désir. |
Where the eye mixes designs and désirs
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. designs runs 7 letters (CVCVCCC) against désirs's 6 (CVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: designs vs désirs
A purely visual mix-up. designs (\di.zajn\) and désirs (\de.ziʁ\) 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 49038, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
designs is recorded at frequency rank #41,219, classified as anoun, pronounced \di.zajn\. désirs is at rank #7,819, tagged as anoun, pronounced \de.ziʁ\.
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 49038, this pair ranks #173,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of designs vs désirs
Shared letters: dis. Private to "designs": egn. Private to "désirs": ré.
"designs" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC · "désirs" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- designs ← ddesigns · deisgns · desgins · desiggns · designns · designss · desigsn · desings
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "designs" for "désirs" ever safe?
Which is more common, "designs" or "désirs"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "designs" and "désirs" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "designs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "désirs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #173,957 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "designs" and "désirs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "désigna vs designs". 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 #173,957 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.