devientvsdévorentWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#683
“devient” frequency rank
#41,759
“dévorent” frequency rank
42442
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature devient dévorent
Definition Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de devenir. Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de dévorer.

Where the eye mixes devient and dévorent

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

7 ch
devient
8 ch
dévorent

Visual trap between devient and dévorent

A purely visual mix-up. devient (\də.vjɛ̃\) and dévorent (\de.vɔʁ\) 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 42442, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

devient is recorded at frequency rank #683, classified as averb, pronounced \də.vjɛ̃\. dévorent is at rank #41,759, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.vɔʁ\.

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 42442, this pair ranks #225,576 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of devient vs dévorent

Shared letters: dentv. Private to "devient": i. Private to "dévorent": oré.

"devient" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCC  ·  "dévorent" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devientddevient · deivent · deveint · deviennt · devientt · devietn · devinet · devvient

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "devient" for "dévorent" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\də.vjɛ̃\ versus \de.vɔʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "devient" vs "dévorent" - which ranks higher?
"devient" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #683 in our French list, against #41,759 for "dévorent". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "devient" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévorent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #225,576 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "devient" and "dévorent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déforment vs dévorent". 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 #225,576 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