donnavsdonnerTell them apart

Which to use

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

#5,025
“donna” frequency rank
#327
“donner” frequency rank
5352
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature donna donner
Definition Troisième personne du singulier du passé simple de donner. 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 donna and donner

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

5 ch
donna
6 ch
donner

Why the eye confuses donna with donner

A purely visual mix-up. donna (\dɔ.na\) 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 5352, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

donna is recorded at frequency rank #5,025, classified as averb, pronounced \dɔ.na\. 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 5352, this pair ranks #429,254 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of donna vs donner

Shared letters: dno. Private to "donna": a. Private to "donner": er.

"donna" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "donner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donnaddonna · dnona · donan · odnna
  • donnerddonner · dnoner · donenr · doner · donnerr · donnre · odnner

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "donna" and "donner" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dɔ.na\ versus \dɔ.ne\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "donna" vs "donner" - which ranks higher?
"donner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #327 in our French list, against #5,025 for "donna". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "donna" 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 #429,254 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "donna" and "donner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donna vs doxa". 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 #429,254 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