dancervsdangerWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#41,214
“dancer” frequency rank
#1,476
“danger” frequency rank
42690
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dancer danger
Definition Danseur, danseuse. Ce qui est ordinairement suivi d’un malheur, ou qui expose à une perte, à un dommage, etc.

Where the eye mixes dancer and danger

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
dancer
6 ch
danger

Why the eye confuses dancer with danger

A purely visual mix-up. dancer (\ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\) and danger (\dɑ̃.ʒe\) 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 a single letter - c in “dancer” becomes g in “danger”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42690, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dancer is recorded at frequency rank #41,214, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\. danger is at rank #1,476, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃.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 42690, this pair ranks #223,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dancer vs danger

Shared letters: adenr. Private to "dancer": c. Private to "danger": g.

"dancer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "danger" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • danceradncer · dacner · danccer · dancerr · dancre · danecr · danncer · ddancer
  • dangeradnger · dagner · danegr · dangerr · dangger · dangre · dannger · ddanger

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dancer" and "danger" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\ versus \dɑ̃.ʒe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dancer" vs "danger" - which ranks higher?
"danger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,476 in our French list, against #41,214 for "dancer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "dancer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "danger" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #223,672 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dancer" and "danger" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dancer vs dansez". 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 #223,672 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