dinervsdonnerWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#13,568
“diner” frequency rank
#327
“donner” frequency rank
13895
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diner donner
Definition Variante orthographique de dîner. Faire un don ; transférer, sans rétribution, la propriété d’une chose que l’on possède ou dont on jouit, à une autre personne.

Where the eye mixes diner and donner

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

5 ch
diner
6 ch
donner

Visual trap between diner and donner

A purely visual mix-up. diner (\di.ne\) and donner (\dɔ.ne\) 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 13895, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diner is recorded at frequency rank #13,568, classified as averb, pronounced \di.ne\. donner is at rank #327, tagged as averb, pronounced \dɔ.ne\.

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 13895, this pair ranks #399,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of diner vs donner

Shared letters: denr. Private to "diner": i. Private to "donner": o.

"diner" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "donner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dinerddiner · dienr · dinerr · dinre · dnier · idner
  • donnerddonner · dnoner · donenr · doner · donnerr · donnre · odnner

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "diner" for "donner" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\di.ne\ versus \dɔ.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "diner" or "donner"?
"donner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #327 in our French list, against #13,568 for "diner". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "diner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #399,078 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "diner" and "donner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diez vs diner". 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 #399,078 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