dévievsdevoirWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#35,008
“dévie” frequency rank
#843
“devoir” frequency rank
35851
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dévie devoir
Definition Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de dévier. Avoir à payer une somme d’argent, à rendre ou à donner quelque chose que ce soit.

Where the eye mixes dévie and devoir

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

5 ch
dévie
6 ch
devoir

Why the eye confuses dévie with devoir

A purely visual mix-up. dévie (\de.vi\) and devoir (\də.vwaʁ\) 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 35851, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dévie is recorded at frequency rank #35,008, classified as averb, pronounced \de.vi\. devoir is at rank #843, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vwaʁ\.

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 35851, this pair ranks #273,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dévie vs devoir

Shared letters: deiv. Private to "dévie": é. Private to "devoir": or.

"dévie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "devoir" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devoirddevoir · deovir · devior · devoirr · devori · devvoir · dveoir · edvoir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dévie" and "devoir" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\de.vi\ versus \də.vwaʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dévie" or "devoir"?
"devoir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #843 in our French list, against #35,008 for "dévie". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "dévie" and "devoir" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dévie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devoir" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #273,784 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dévie" and "devoir" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs dévie". 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 #273,784 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