devantsvsdevintWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: devants is a noun, devint is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“devants” is a noun and “devint” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#23,169
“devants” frequency rank
#5,122
“devint” frequency rank
28291
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature devants devint
Definition Pluriel de devant. Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de devenir.

Where the eye mixes devants and devint

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
devants
6 ch
devint

Look-alike desk: devants vs devint

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: devants is \də.vɑ̃\ while devint is \də.vɛ̃\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28291, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

devants is recorded at frequency rank #23,169, classified as anoun, pronounced \də.vɑ̃\. devint is at rank #5,122, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vɛ̃\.

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 28291, this pair ranks #323,740 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of devants vs devint

Shared letters: dentv. Private to "devants": as. Private to "devint": i.

"devants" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC  ·  "devint" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devantsddevants · deavnts · devannts · devanst · devantss · devantts · devatns · devnats
  • devintddevint · deivnt · devinnt · devintt · devitn · devnit · devvint · dveint

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "devants" for "devint" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "devants" is a noun and "devint" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "devants" vs "devint" - which ranks higher?
"devint" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,122 in our French list, against #23,169 for "devants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "devants" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devint" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #323,740 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "devants" and "devint" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devants vs déviants". 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 #323,740 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