donnéevsdonnerTell them apart

Quick tell: donnée is a noun, donner is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“donnée” is a noun and “donner” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,514
“donnée” frequency rank
#327
“donner” frequency rank
2841
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature donnée donner
Definition Information sur un sujet particulier, qui, avec d’autres données, sert de base à la réflexion ou l'étude de ce sujet. Faire un don ; transférer, sans rétribution, la propriété d’une chose que l’on possède ou dont on jouit, à une autre personne.

Same sound, different letters: donnée vs donner

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.

6 ch
donnée
6 ch
donner

Ear matches; page differs - donnée and donner

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: donnée and donner carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dɔ.ne\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other averb, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 2841, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

donnée is recorded at frequency rank #2,514, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɔ.ne\. 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 2841, this pair ranks #435,371 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of donnée vs donner

Shared letters: deno. Private to "donnée": é. Private to "donner": r.

"donnée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "donner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donnerddonner · dnoner · donenr · doner · donnerr · donnre · odnner

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "donnée" for "donner" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "donnée" is a noun and "donner" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "donnée" or "donner" show up more?
"donner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #327 in our French list, against #2,514 for "donnée". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "donnée" 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 #435,371 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "donnée" and "donner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donnée vs dundee". 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 #435,371 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