Which to use
“damage” is a noun and “dégagé” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #46,096
- “damage” frequency rank
- #9,648
- “dégagé” frequency rank
- 55744
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | damage | dégagé |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de damer. | Qualifie une allure, une démarche qui semble n'être pas gênée par quoi que ce soit. |
Where the eye mixes damage and dégagé
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. damage and dégagé follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Visual trap between damage and dégagé
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: damage is \da.maʒ\ while dégagé is \de.ɡa.ʒe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55744, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
damage is recorded at frequency rank #46,096, classified as anoun, pronounced \da.maʒ\. dégagé is at rank #9,648, tagged as anadj, pronounced \de.ɡa.ʒe\.
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 55744, this pair ranks #125,490 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of damage vs dégagé
Shared letters: adg. Private to "damage": em. Private to "dégagé": é.
"damage" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "dégagé" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- damage ← admage · daamge · damaeg · damagge · damgae · dammage · ddamage · dmaage
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "damage" and "dégagé" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "damage" or "dégagé"?
After this comparison
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "damage" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dégagé" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #125,490 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "damage" and "dégagé" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dallage vs damage". 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 #125,490 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.