donnée vs Downey, What's the Difference?

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 spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set donnée and Downey apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

donnée

6 ch

Downey

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

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

Frequency comparison

donnée#2,514

Downey#37,281

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "donnée" and "Downey" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "donnée" is a noun and "Downey" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "donnée" or "Downey"?

"donnée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,514 in our French list, against #37,281 for "Downey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering donnée vs Downey

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “donnée”; for a name, it's “Downey”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “donnée” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable