dicevsdicoWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#44,417
“dice” frequency rank
#28,913
“dico” frequency rank
73330
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dice dico
Definition Pluriel de die. Dés à jouer. Dictionnaire.

Where the eye mixes dice and dico

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dice and dico follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
dice
4 ch
dico

Why the eye confuses dice with dico

A purely visual mix-up. dice (\ˈdaɪs\) and dico (\di.ko\) 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 a single letter - e in “dice” becomes o in “dico”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73330, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dice is recorded at frequency rank #44,417, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdaɪs\. dico is at rank #28,913, tagged as anoun, pronounced \di.ko\.

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 73330, this pair ranks #40,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dice vs dico

Shared letters: cdi. Private to "dice": e. Private to "dico": o.

"dice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dico" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dice ← dcie · ddice · dicce · diec · idce
  • dico ← dcio · ddico · dicco · dioc · idco

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dice" and "dico" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdaɪs\ versus \di.ko\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dice" vs "dico" - which ranks higher?
"dico" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,913 in our French list, against #44,417 for "dice". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dico" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #40,852 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dice" and "dico" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs dice". 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 #40,852 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