daguevsdrogueWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#31,913
“dague” frequency rank
#2,772
“drogue” frequency rank
34685
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dague drogue
Definition Espèce de long poignard. Substance psychotrope provoquant le plus souvent une dépendance et utilisée pour modifier son état mental, en particulier substance illégale dont l’usage est réprouvé.

Where the eye mixes dague and drogue

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

5 ch
dague
6 ch
drogue

Visual trap between dague and drogue

A purely visual mix-up. dague (\daɡ\) and drogue (\dʁɔɡ\) 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 34685, 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\. drogue is at rank #2,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔɡ\.

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 34685, this pair ranks #282,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dague vs drogue

Shared letters: degu. Private to "dague": a. Private to "drogue": or.

"dague" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "drogue" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dagueadgue · dageu · daggue · dauge · ddague · dgaue
  • drogueddrogue · dorgue · drgoue · drogeu · droggue · drouge · drrogue · rdogue

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dague" and "drogue" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\daɡ\ versus \dʁɔɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dague" or "drogue" show up more?
"drogue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,772 in our French list, against #31,913 for "dague". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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 "drogue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #282,111 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dague" and "drogue" 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 #282,111 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