damnévsdigneWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,376
“damné” frequency rank
#3,134
“digne” frequency rank
46510
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature damné digne
Definition Qui est condamné aux peines de l’enfer, qui est puni des peines de l’enfer. Qui mérite quelque chose.

Where the eye mixes damné and digne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. damné and digne follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
damné
5 ch
digne

Why the eye confuses damné with digne

A purely visual mix-up. damné (\dɑ.ne\) and digne (\diɲ\) 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 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46510, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

damné is recorded at frequency rank #43,376, classified as anadj, pronounced \dɑ.ne\. digne is at rank #3,134, tagged as anadj, pronounced \diɲ\.

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 46510, this pair ranks #194,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of damné vs digne

Shared letters: dn. Private to "damné": amé. Private to "digne": egi.

"damné" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "digne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • digne ← ddigne · dgine · digen · diggne · dignne · dinge · idgne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "damné" for "digne" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɑ.ne\ versus \diɲ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "damné" or "digne"?
"digne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,134 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.

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 "damné" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "digne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #194,326 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "damné" and "digne" 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 #194,326 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