donnésvsdouvesWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: donnés is a adjective, douves is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“donnés” is an adjective and “douves” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,288
“donnés” frequency rank
#42,833
“douves” frequency rank
49121
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature donnés douves
Definition Masculin pluriel de donné. Pluriel de douve.

Where the eye mixes donnés and douves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. donnés (CVCCVC) and douves (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
donnés
6 ch
douves

Look-alike desk: donnés vs douves

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: donnés is \dɔ.ne\ while douves is \duv\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49121, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

donnés is recorded at frequency rank #6,288, classified as anadj, pronounced \dɔ.ne\. douves is at rank #42,833, tagged as anoun, pronounced \duv\.

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 49121, this pair ranks #173,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of donnés vs douves

Shared letters: dos. Private to "donnés": né. Private to "douves": euv.

"donnés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "douves" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • douves ← ddouves · douevs · douvess · douvse · douvves · dovues · duoves · oduves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "donnés" for "douves" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "donnés" is an adjective and "douves" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "donnés" or "douves"?
"donnés" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,288 in our French list, against #42,833 for "douves". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "donnés" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "douves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #173,317 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "donnés" and "douves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "douées vs douves". 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 #173,317 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