DevauxvsdévouéWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Devaux is a name, dévoué is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Devaux” is a name and “dévoué” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,019
“Devaux” frequency rank
#17,942
“dévoué” frequency rank
66961
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Devaux dévoué
Definition Nom de famille Qui est disposé à tout faire pour être utile ou agréable à quelqu’un.

Where the eye mixes Devaux and dévoué

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

6 ch
Devaux
6 ch
dévoué

Why the eye confuses Devaux with dévoué

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Devaux is \de.vo\ while dévoué is \de.vwe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 66961, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Devaux is recorded at frequency rank #49,019, classified as aname, pronounced \de.vo\. dévoué is at rank #17,942, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.vwe\.

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 66961, this pair ranks #65,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Devaux vs dévoué

Shared letters: duv. Private to "Devaux": aex. Private to "dévoué": .

"Devaux" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "dévoué" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Devauxddevaux · deavux · devauxx · devaxu · devuax · devvaux · dveaux · edvaux

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Devaux" and "dévoué" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Devaux" is a name and "dévoué" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Devaux" vs "dévoué" - which ranks higher?
"dévoué" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,942 in our French list, against #49,019 for "Devaux". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Devaux" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévoué" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Devaux" and "dévoué" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Delvaux vs Devaux". 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 #65,524 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