douanevsdoubleConfusable pair

Quick tell: douane is a noun, double is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#11,566
“douane” frequency rank
#844
“double” frequency rank
12410
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature douane double
Definition Administration chargée de percevoir à la frontière les droits imposés sur l’entrée et la sortie des marchandises et de veiller à ce que les importations ou les exportations prohibées n’aient pas lieu. Qui vaut, qui pèse ou qui contient deux fois autant.

Where the eye mixes douane and double

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
douane
6 ch
double

Look-alike desk: douane vs double

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: douane is \dwan\ while double is \dubl\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12410, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

douane is recorded at frequency rank #11,566, classified as anoun, pronounced \dwan\. double is at rank #844, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dubl\.

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 12410, this pair ranks #405,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of douane vs double

Shared letters: deou. Private to "douane": an. Private to "double": bl.

"douane" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCV  ·  "double" · 6 letters · shape CVVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • douaneddouane · doaune · douaen · douanne · dounae · duoane · oduane
  • doubleddouble · dobule · doubble · doubel · doublle · doulbe · duoble · oduble

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "douane" and "double" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "douane" is a noun and "double" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "douane" or "double"?
"double" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #844 in our French list, against #11,566 for "douane". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "douane" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "double" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #405,380 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "douane" and "double" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "douane vs doutant". 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 #405,380 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