Which to use
“devise” is a noun and “divisé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,050
- “devise” frequency rank
- #6,811
- “divisé” frequency rank
- 13861
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | devise | divisé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Figure accompagnée d’une phrase exprimant d’une manière allégorique et brève quelque pensée, quelque sentiment. | Qui ne penche ni dans un sens ni dans un autre ; hésitant, indécis. |
Where the eye mixes devise and divisé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: devise vs divisé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: devise is \də.viz\ while divisé is \di.vi.ze\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13861, 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\. divisé is at rank #6,811, tagged as anadj, pronounced \di.vi.ze\.
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 13861, this pair ranks #399,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of devise vs divisé
Shared letters: disv. Private to "devise": e. Private to "divisé": é.
"devise" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "divisé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- devise ← ddevise · deivse · devies · devisse · devsie · devvise · dveise · edvise
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "devise" and "divisé" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "devise" or "divisé"?
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 "devise" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "divisé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #399,246 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "devise" and "divisé" 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 #399,246 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.