deuvsdeuilWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#36,794
“deu” frequency rank
#5,652
“deuil” frequency rank
42446
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deu deuil
Definition Dieu. Affliction, douleur qu’on éprouve lors du décès de quelqu’un, ou suite à une autre perte importante.

Letter map: deu vs deuil

Shared letters muted; letters that set deu and deuil apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. deu runs 3 letters (CVV) against deuil's 5 (CVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
deu
5 ch
deuil

Pair insight - deu / deuil

deu and deuil are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “deu” sits inside “deuil”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42446, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deu is recorded at frequency rank #36,794, classified as anoun. deuil is at rank #5,652, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dœj\.

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 42446, this pair ranks #225,540 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deu vs deuil

Shared letters: deu. Private to "deu": -. Private to "deuil": il.

"deu" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "deuil" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deuil ← ddeuil · deiul · deuill · deuli · dueil · eduil

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "deu" and "deuil" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “deu” sits inside “deuil”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "deu" or "deuil"?
"deuil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,652 in our French list, against #36,794 for "deu". 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 "deu" and "deuil". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "deu" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "deuil" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #225,540 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deu" and "deuil" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs deu". 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 #225,540 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