DexvsdietWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#43,878
“Dex” frequency rank
#42,281
“diet” frequency rank
86159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Dex diet
Definition Dieu Diète.

Where the eye mixes Dex and diet

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Dex runs 3 letters (CVC) against diet's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Dex
4 ch
diet

Why the eye confuses Dex with diet

A purely visual mix-up. Dex (\'de.us\) and diet (\ˈdaɪ.ət\) 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 86159, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Dex is recorded at frequency rank #43,878, classified as anoun, pronounced \'de.us\. diet is at rank #42,281, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈdaɪ.ət\.

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 86159, this pair ranks #10,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Dex vs diet

Shared letters: de. Private to "Dex": x. Private to "diet": it.

"Dex" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "diet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • diet ← ddiet · diett · idet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Dex" for "diet" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\'de.us\ versus \ˈdaɪ.ət\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Dex" or "diet"?
"diet" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #42,281 in our French list, against #43,878 for "Dex". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Dex" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diet" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #10,145 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Dex" and "diet" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs Dex". 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 #10,145 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