dansesvsdosesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#9,466
“danses” frequency rank
#9,152
“doses” frequency rank
18618
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature danses doses
Definition Pluriel de danse. Pluriel de dose.

Where the eye mixes danses and doses

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

6 ch
danses
5 ch
doses

Visual trap between danses and doses

A purely visual mix-up. danses (\dɑ̃s\) and doses (\dɔz\) 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 18618, 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\. doses is at rank #9,152, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔz\.

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 18618, this pair ranks #377,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of danses vs doses

Shared letters: des. Private to "danses": an. Private to "doses": o.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dansesadnses · daness · dannses · dansess · dansses · dasnes · ddanses · dnases
  • dosesddoses · doess · dosess · dosses · dsoes · odses

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "danses" and "doses" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dɑ̃s\ versus \dɔz\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "danses" or "doses"?
"doses" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,152 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.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "danses" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "doses" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #377,392 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "danses" and "doses" 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 #377,392 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