donjonvsdonjonsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#14,014
“donjon” frequency rank
#30,130
“donjons” frequency rank
44144
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature donjon donjons
Definition Tour principale d’un château où se conservaient les archives et le trésor et où se concentraient les derniers efforts de la défense. Pluriel de donjon.

Same sound, different letters: donjon vs donjons

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 6 letters. donjon runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against donjons's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
donjon
7 ch
donjons

Same sound, different spelling - donjon / donjons

This is the hard kind. donjon and donjons are pronounced identically (\dɔ̃.ʒɔ̃\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “donjon” sits inside “donjons”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44144, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

donjon is recorded at frequency rank #14,014, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɔ̃.ʒɔ̃\. donjons is at rank #30,130, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔ̃.ʒɔ̃\.

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 44144, this pair ranks #212,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of donjon vs donjons

Shared letters: djno. Private to "donjon": -. Private to "donjons": s.

"donjon" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "donjons" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donjon ← ddonjon · dnojon · dojnon · donjjon · donjno · donjonn · donnjon · donojn
  • donjons ← ddonjons · dnojons · dojnons · donjjons · donjnos · donjonns · donjonss · donjosn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "donjon" and "donjons" be used interchangeably?
No. They are pronounced the same (\dɔ̃.ʒɔ̃\), which is exactly why they get swapped in writing, but the dictionary meanings above are different, and pronunciation is no guide here.
In ordinary French text, does "donjon" or "donjons" show up more?
"donjon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,014 in our French list, against #30,130 for "donjons". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've separated the homophone pair "donjon" / "donjons". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "donjon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donjons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #212,719 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "donjon" and "donjons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dindons vs donjons". 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 #212,719 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