dancervsdanseurTell them apart

Which to use

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

#41,214
“dancer” frequency rank
#13,351
“danseur” frequency rank
54565
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dancer danseur
Definition Danseur, danseuse. Celui qui danse.

Where the eye mixes dancer and danseur

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

6 ch
dancer
7 ch
danseur

Look-alike desk: dancer vs danseur

A purely visual mix-up. dancer (\ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\) and danseur (\dɑ̃.sœʁ\) 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 54565, 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)\. danseur is at rank #13,351, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃.sœʁ\.

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 54565, this pair ranks #133,167 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dancer vs danseur

Shared letters: adenr. Private to "dancer": c. Private to "danseur": su.

"dancer" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "danseur" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • danceradncer · dacner · danccer · dancerr · dancre · danecr · danncer · ddancer
  • danseuradnseur · danesur · dannseur · danseru · danseurr · dansseur · dansuer · dasneur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dancer" and "danseur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdɑːns.ə(ɹ)\ versus \dɑ̃.sœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dancer" vs "danseur" - which ranks higher?
"danseur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,351 in our French list, against #41,214 for "dancer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dancer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "danseur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,167 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dancer" and "danseur" 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 #133,167 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