dinnervsdonnéeConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#39,254
“dinner” frequency rank
#2,514
“donnée” frequency rank
41768
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dinner donnée
Definition Repas principal du jour. Dîner. Information sur un sujet particulier, qui, avec d’autres données, sert de base à la réflexion ou l'étude de ce sujet.

Where the eye mixes dinner and donnée

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

6 ch
dinner
6 ch
donnée

Why the eye confuses dinner with donnée

A purely visual mix-up. dinner (\ˈdɪn.ɚ\) and donnée (\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 share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41768, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dinner is recorded at frequency rank #39,254, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdɪn.ɚ\. donnée is at rank #2,514, tagged as anoun, 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 41768, this pair ranks #230,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dinner vs donnée

Shared letters: den. Private to "dinner": ir. Private to "donnée": .

"dinner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "donnée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dinnerddinner · dinenr · dinnerr · dinnre · dniner · idnner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dinner" and "donnée" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdɪn.ɚ\ versus \dɔ.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "dinner" vs "donnée" - which ranks higher?
"donnée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,514 in our French list, against #39,254 for "dinner". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dinner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donnée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #230,647 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dinner" and "donnée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dindes vs dinner". 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 #230,647 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