divinevsdizaineWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: divine is a adjective, dizaine is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“divine” is an adjective and “dizaine” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,286
“divine” frequency rank
#3,399
“dizaine” frequency rank
9685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature divine dizaine
Definition Féminin singulier de divin. Groupe de dix unités.

Where the eye mixes divine and dizaine

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. divine runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against dizaine's 7 (CVCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
divine
7 ch
dizaine

Why the eye confuses divine with dizaine

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: divine is \di.vin\ while dizaine is \di.zɛn\. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9685, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

divine is recorded at frequency rank #6,286, classified as anadj, pronounced \di.vin\. dizaine is at rank #3,399, tagged as anoun, pronounced \di.zɛn\.

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 9685, this pair ranks #415,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of divine vs dizaine

Shared letters: dein. Private to "divine": v. Private to "dizaine": az.

"divine" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "dizaine" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • divine ← ddivine · diivne · divien · divinne · divnie · divvine · dviine · idvine
  • dizaine ← ddizaine · diazine · dizaien · dizainne · dizanie · diziane · dizzaine · dziaine

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "divine" for "dizaine" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "divine" is an adjective and "dizaine" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "divine" or "dizaine"?
"dizaine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,399 in our French list, against #6,286 for "divine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "divine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dizaine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #415,792 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "divine" and "dizaine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "devins vs divine". 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 #415,792 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