Which to use
“douées” is an adjective and “duels” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,709
- “douées” frequency rank
- #20,702
- “duels” frequency rank
- 67411
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | douées | duels |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Féminin pluriel de doué. | Pluriel de duel. |
Where the eye mixes douées and duels
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. douées runs 6 letters (CVVVVC) against duels's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between douées and duels
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: douées is \dwe\ while duels is \dɥɛl\. 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 67411, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
douées is recorded at frequency rank #46,709, classified as anadj, pronounced \dwe\. duels is at rank #20,702, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɥɛl\.
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 67411, this pair ranks #63,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of douées vs duels
Shared letters: desu. Private to "douées": oé. Private to "duels": l.
"douées" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC · "duels" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- duels ← dduels · deuls · duells · duelss · duesl · dules · udels
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "douées" for "duels" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "douées" or "duels" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "douées" and "duels" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "douées" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "duels" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #63,549 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "douées" and "duels" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dombes vs douées". 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 #63,549 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.