Which to use
“donnée” is a noun and “Downey” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #2,514
- “donnée” frequency rank
- #37,281
- “Downey” frequency rank
- 39795
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | donnée | Downey |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Information sur un sujet particulier, qui, avec d’autres données, sert de base à la réflexion ou l'étude de ce sujet. | Nom de famille. |
Where the eye mixes donnée and Downey
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. donnée and Downey follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Why the eye confuses donnée with Downey
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: donnée is \dɔ.ne\ while Downey is \daw.nɛ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39795, 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\. Downey is at rank #37,281, tagged as aname, pronounced \daw.nɛ\.
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 39795, this pair ranks #245,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of donnée vs Downey
Shared letters: deno. Private to "donnée": é. Private to "Downey": wy.
"donnée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV · "Downey" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
- Downey ← ddowney · donwey · doweny · downeyy · downney · downye · dowwney · dwoney
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "donnée" and "Downey" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "donnée" or "Downey"?
What to do next
Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.
- Full dictionary entry for "donnée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Downey" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #245,320 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "donnée" and "Downey" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donkey vs Downey". 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 #245,320 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.