dansesvsdatesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,466
“danses” frequency rank
#3,603
“dates” frequency rank
13069
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature danses dates
Definition Pluriel de danse. Pluriel de date.

Where the eye mixes danses and dates

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
danses
5 ch
dates

Why the eye confuses danses with dates

A purely visual mix-up. danses (\dɑ̃s\) and dates (\dat\) 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 13069, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

danses is recorded at frequency rank #9,466, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɑ̃s\. dates is at rank #3,603, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dat\.

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 13069, this pair ranks #402,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of danses vs dates

Shared letters: ades. Private to "danses": n. Private to "dates": t.

"danses" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "dates" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dansesadnses · daness · dannses · dansess · dansses · dasnes · ddanses · dnases
  • datesadtes · daets · datess · datse · ddates · dtaes

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "danses" for "dates" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dɑ̃s\ versus \dat\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "danses" or "dates" show up more?
"dates" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,603 in our French list, against #9,466 for "danses". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "danses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dates" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #402,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "danses" and "dates" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "danoises vs danses". 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 #402,555 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