damesvsdamnéTell them apart

Quick tell: dames is a noun, damné is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dames” is a noun and “damné” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,140
“dames” frequency rank
#43,376
“damné” frequency rank
47516
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dames damné
Definition Jeu de dames, jeu stratégique à deux joueurs, se jouant avec des pions blancs et noirs sur un damier de 64, 100 ou 144 cases selon la variante des règles utilisée. Qui est condamné aux peines de l’enfer, qui est puni des peines de l’enfer.

Where the eye mixes dames and damné

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dames (CVCVC) and damné (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
dames
5 ch
damné

Look-alike desk: dames vs damné

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dames is \dam\ while damné is \dɑ.ne\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 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 47516, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dames is recorded at frequency rank #4,140, classified as anoun, pronounced \dam\. damné is at rank #43,376, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɑ.ne\.

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 47516, this pair ranks #186,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dames vs damné

Shared letters: adm. Private to "dames": es. Private to "damné": né.

"dames" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "damné" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dames ← admes · daems · damess · dammes · damse · ddames · dmaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dames" for "damné" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dames" is a noun and "damné" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dames" vs "damné" - which ranks higher?
"dames" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,140 in our French list, against #43,376 for "damné". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "dames" and "damné" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dames" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "damné" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #186,349 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dames" and "damné" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "damné vs damned". 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 #186,349 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