donevsdonnerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: done is a adjective, donner is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“done” is an adjective and “donner” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#236
“done” frequency rank
#35,261
“donner” frequency rank
35497
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature done donner
Definition Having completed or finished an activity. To beat up; clobber; thrash.

Letter map: done vs donner

Shared letters muted; letters that set done and donner apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

4 ch
done
6 ch
donner

Grammar separator: done vs donner

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: done is anadjective and donneraverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35497, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

done is recorded at frequency rank #236, classified as anadj, pronounced /dʌn/. donner is at rank #35,261, tagged as averb.

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 35497, this pair ranks #311,429 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of done vs donner

Shared letters: deno. Private to "done": -. Private to "donner": r.

"done" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "donner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doneddone · dnoe · doen · odne
  • donnerddonner · dnoner · donenr · doner · donnerr · donnre · odnner

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "done" for "donner" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "done" is an adjective and "donner" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "done" or "donner" show up more?
"done" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #236 in our English list, against #35,261 for "donner". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "done" and "donner".

  • Full dictionary entry for "done" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #311,429 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "done" and "donner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dionne vs donner". 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 #311,429 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list