DatevsdrakeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#580
“Date” frequency rank
#12,768
“drake” frequency rank
13348
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Date drake
Definition Rendez-vous entre deux amoureux. Canard mâle, malard.

Where the eye mixes Date and drake

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

4 ch
Date
5 ch
drake

Why the eye confuses Date with drake

A purely visual mix-up. Date (\dɛɪ̯t\) and drake ([dɹeɪk]) 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 13348, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Date is recorded at frequency rank #580, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɛɪ̯t\. drake is at rank #12,768, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dɹeɪk].

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 13348, this pair ranks #401,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Date vs drake

Shared letters: ade. Private to "Date": t. Private to "drake": kr.

"Date" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "drake" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Dateadte · daet · datte · ddate · dtae
  • drakedarke · ddrake · draek · drakke · drkae · drrake · rdake

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Date" and "drake" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dɛɪ̯t\ versus [dɹeɪk]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Date" vs "drake" - which ranks higher?
"Date" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #580 in our French list, against #12,768 for "drake". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Date" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drake" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #401,379 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Date" and "drake" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drake vs dray". 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 #401,379 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