Which to use
“donne” is a noun and “down” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #326
- “donne” frequency rank
- #8,531
- “down” frequency rank
- 8857
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | donne | down |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de donner, de distribuer les cartes, dans un jeu de cartes. | Dépressif, déprimé. |
Same sound, different letters: donne vs down
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - donne / down
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: donne and down carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dɔn\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
donne is recorded at frequency rank #326, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɔn\. down is at rank #8,531, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɔn\.
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 8857, this pair ranks #418,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of donne vs down
Shared letters: dno. Private to "donne": e. Private to "down": w.
"donne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "down" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "donne" for "down" ever safe?
In ordinary French text, does "donne" or "down" show up more?
Useful next steps
Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.
- Full dictionary entry for "donne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "down" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #418,645 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "donne" and "down" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs down". 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 #418,645 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.