Which to use
“donne” and “drone” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #326
- “donne” frequency rank
- #9,472
- “drone” frequency rank
- 9798
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | donne | drone |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Action de donner, de distribuer les cartes, dans un jeu de cartes. | Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé. |
Where the eye mixes donne and drone
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. donne (CVCCV) and drone (CCVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Look-alike desk: donne vs drone
A purely visual mix-up. donne (\dɔn\) and drone (\dʁon\) 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 9798, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
donne is recorded at frequency rank #326, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɔn\. drone is at rank #9,472, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁon\.
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 9798, this pair ranks #415,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of donne vs drone
Shared letters: deno. Private to "donne": -. Private to "drone": r.
"donne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV · "drone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "donne" for "drone" ever safe?
Which is more common, "donne" or "drone"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "donne" and "drone" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "donne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #415,358 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "donne" and "drone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drone vs drunk". 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 #415,358 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.