dicevsdiresConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#44,417
“dice” frequency rank
#11,949
“dires” frequency rank
56366
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dice dires
Definition Pluriel de die. Dés à jouer. Pluriel de dire.

Where the eye mixes dice and dires

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dice runs 4 letters (CVCV) against dires's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
dice
5 ch
dires

Look-alike desk: dice vs dires

A purely visual mix-up. dice (\ˈdaɪs\) and dires (\diʁ\) 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 56366, 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\. dires is at rank #11,949, tagged as anoun, pronounced \diʁ\.

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 56366, this pair ranks #121,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dice vs dires

Shared letters: dei. Private to "dice": c. Private to "dires": rs.

"dice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dires" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dice ← dcie · ddice · dicce · diec · idce
  • dires ← ddires · diers · diress · dirres · dirse · dries · idres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dice" and "dires" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdaɪs\ versus \diʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dice" or "dires" show up more?
"dires" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,949 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 "dires" 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 "dires" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #121,524 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dice" and "dires" 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 #121,524 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