Which to use
“douane” is a noun and “douze” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,566
- “douane” frequency rank
- #2,472
- “douze” frequency rank
- 14038
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | douane | douze |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Onze plus un, adjectif numéral cardinal correspondant au nombre 12. |
Where the eye mixes douane and douze
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: douane vs douze
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: douane is \dwan\ while douze is \duz\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14038, 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\. douze is at rank #2,472, tagged as anadj, pronounced \duz\.
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 14038, this pair ranks #398,454 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of douane vs douze
Shared letters: deou. Private to "douane": an. Private to "douze": z.
"douane" · 6 letters · shape CVVVCV · "douze" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "douane" and "douze" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "douane" or "douze"?
Useful next steps
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 "douze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #398,454 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "douane" and "douze" 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 #398,454 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.