dansevsdonneConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#1,658
“danse” frequency rank
#326
“donne” frequency rank
1984
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature danse donne
Definition Mouvement du corps exécuté en cadence, à pas mesurés, et au son d’instruments ou de la voix. Action de donner, de distribuer les cartes, dans un jeu de cartes.

Where the eye mixes danse and donne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
danse
5 ch
donne

Visual trap between danse and donne

A purely visual mix-up. danse (\dɑ̃s\) and donne (\dɔn\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 1984, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

danse is recorded at frequency rank #1,658, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃s\. donne is at rank #326, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔn\.

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 1984, this pair ranks #437,001 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of danse vs donne

Shared letters: den. Private to "danse": as. Private to "donne": o.

"danse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "donne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • danseadnse · danes · dannse · dansse · dasne · ddanse · dnase
  • donneddonne · dnone · donen · odnne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "danse" for "donne" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɑ̃s\ versus \dɔn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "danse" vs "donne" - which ranks higher?
"donne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #326 in our French list, against #1,658 for "danse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "danse" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,001 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "danse" and "donne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donne vs donniez". 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 #437,001 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