Which to use
“dancer” and “danse” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #41,214
- “dancer” frequency rank
- #1,658
- “danse” frequency rank
- 42872
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dancer | danse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Danseur, danseuse. | Mouvement du corps exécuté en cadence, à pas mesurés, et au son d’instruments ou de la voix. |
Where the eye mixes dancer and danse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between dancer and danse
A purely visual mix-up. dancer (\ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\) and danse (\dɑ̃s\) 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 42872, 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)\. danse is at rank #1,658, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃s\.
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 42872, this pair ranks #222,270 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dancer vs danse
Shared letters: aden. Private to "dancer": cr. Private to "danse": s.
"dancer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "danse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dancer" and "danse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "dancer" or "danse" show up more?
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 "danse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #222,270 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dancer" and "danse" 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 #222,270 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.