daguevsdaubeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#31,913
“dague” frequency rank
#29,720
“daube” frequency rank
61633
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dague daube
Definition Espèce de long poignard. Manière de préparer certaines viandes avec un assaisonnement particulier et de les cuire à l’étouffée à très petit feu.

Where the eye mixes dague and daube

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
dague
5 ch
daube

Look-alike desk: dague vs daube

A purely visual mix-up. dague (\daɡ\) and daube (\dob\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61633, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dague is recorded at frequency rank #31,913, classified as anoun, pronounced \daɡ\. daube is at rank #29,720, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dob\.

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 61633, this pair ranks #91,245 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dague vs daube

Shared letters: adeu. Private to "dague": g. Private to "daube": b.

"dague" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "daube" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dagueadgue · dageu · daggue · dauge · ddague · dgaue
  • daubeadube · dabue · daubbe · daueb · ddaube · duabe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dague" and "daube" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\daɡ\ versus \dob\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dague" or "daube" show up more?
"daube" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,720 in our French list, against #31,913 for "dague". 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 "dague" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "daube" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #91,245 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dague" and "daube" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dague vs dragues". 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 #91,245 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