dévorantvsdevraitWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: dévorant is a adjective, devrait is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dévorant” is an adjective and “devrait” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,006
“dévorant” frequency rank
#413
“devrait” frequency rank
45419
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dévorant devrait
Definition Qui dévore. Troisième personne du singulier du conditionnel de devoir.

Where the eye mixes dévorant and devrait

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

8 ch
dévorant
7 ch
devrait

Why the eye confuses dévorant with devrait

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dévorant is \de.vɔ.ʁɑ̃\ while devrait is \də.vʁɛ\. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45419, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dévorant is recorded at frequency rank #45,006, classified as anadj, pronounced \de.vɔ.ʁɑ̃\. devrait is at rank #413, tagged as averb, pronounced \də.vʁɛ\.

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 45419, this pair ranks #202,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dévorant vs devrait

Shared letters: adrtv. Private to "dévorant": noé. Private to "devrait": ei.

"dévorant" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC  ·  "devrait" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • devraitddevrait · dervait · devarit · devraitt · devrati · devriat · devrrait · devvrait

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dévorant" for "devrait" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dévorant" is an adjective and "devrait" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dévorant" or "devrait"?
"devrait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #413 in our French list, against #45,006 for "dévorant". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dévorant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "devrait" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #202,844 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dévorant" and "devrait" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "décorent vs dévorant". 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 #202,844 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