donnentvsdonneurTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#2,035
“donnent” frequency rank
#14,247
“donneur” frequency rank
16282
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature donnent donneur
Definition Troisième personne du pluriel du présent de l’indicatif de donner. Celui qui donne.

Where the eye mixes donnent and donneur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. donnent (CVCCVCC) and donneur (CVCCVVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
donnent
7 ch
donneur

Visual trap between donnent and donneur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: donnent is \dɔn\ while donneur is \dɔ.nœʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16282, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

donnent is recorded at frequency rank #2,035, classified as averb, pronounced \dɔn\. donneur is at rank #14,247, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔ.nœʁ\.

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 16282, this pair ranks #388,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of donnent vs donneur

Shared letters: deno. Private to "donnent": t. Private to "donneur": ru.

"donnent" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "donneur" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donnentddonnent · dnonent · donennt · donent · donnennt · donnentt · donnetn · donnnet
  • donneurddonneur · dnoneur · donenur · doneur · donneru · donneurr · donnuer · odnneur

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "donnent" and "donneur" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "donnent" is a verb and "donneur" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "donnent" or "donneur" show up more?
"donnent" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,035 in our French list, against #14,247 for "donneur". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "donnent" and "donneur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "donnent" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "donneur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #388,539 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "donnent" and "donneur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "donneur vs dormeur". 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 #388,539 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