divvsdonTell them apart

Which to use

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

#27,407
“div” frequency rank
#1,589
“don” frequency rank
28996
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature div don
Definition Type de balise HTML servant à délimiter un bloc de texte d’une ou plusieurs lignes. Action d’offrir à quelqu’un quelque chose, de lui en abandonner la propriété ou présent qu’on lui fait ainsi.

Where the eye mixes div and don

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
div
3 ch
don

Look-alike desk: div vs don

A purely visual mix-up. div (\div\) and don (\dɔ̃\) 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 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28996, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

div is recorded at frequency rank #27,407, classified as anoun, pronounced \div\. don is at rank #1,589, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔ̃\.

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 28996, this pair ranks #319,382 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of div vs don

Shared letters: d. Private to "div": iv. Private to "don": no.

"div" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "don" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "div" and "don" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\div\ versus \dɔ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "div" vs "don" - which ranks higher?
"don" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,589 in our French list, against #27,407 for "div". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "div" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "don" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #319,382 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "div" and "don" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs div". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #319,382 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