devisevsdévoileWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,050
“devise” frequency rank
#7,180
“dévoile” frequency rank
14230
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature devise dévoile
Definition Figure accompagnée d’une phrase exprimant d’une manière allégorique et brève quelque pensée, quelque sentiment. Première personne du singulier du présent de l’indicatif de dévoiler.

Where the eye mixes devise and dévoile

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
devise
7 ch
dévoile

Visual trap between devise and dévoile

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: devise is \də.viz\ while dévoile is \de.vwal\. 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 14230, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

devise is recorded at frequency rank #7,050, classified as anoun, pronounced \də.viz\. dévoile is at rank #7,180, tagged as averb, pronounced \de.vwal\.

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 14230, this pair ranks #397,585 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of devise vs dévoile

Shared letters: deiv. Private to "devise": s. Private to "dévoile": loé.

"devise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "dévoile" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deviseddevise · deivse · devies · devisse · devsie · devvise · dveise · edvise

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "devise" and "dévoile" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "devise" is a noun and "dévoile" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "devise" or "dévoile"?
"devise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,050 in our French list, against #7,180 for "dévoile". 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 "devise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dévoile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #397,585 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "devise" and "dévoile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devins vs devise". 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 #397,585 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