Which to use
“draft” and “drain” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #29,317
- “draft” frequency rank
- #33,222
- “drain” frequency rank
- 62539
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | draft | drain |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Bourse aux joueurs dans tous les sports collectifs nord-américains. | Une des trois électrodes d’un transistor à effet de champ (les deux autres sont appelées source et grille). Il joue un rôle analogue à l’anode dans les tubes à vide, ou le collecteur dans les transistors bipolaires. |
Where the eye mixes draft and drain
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: draft vs drain
A purely visual mix-up. draft (\dʁaft\) and drain (\dʁɛ̃\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62539, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
draft is recorded at frequency rank #29,317, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁaft\. drain is at rank #33,222, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɛ̃\.
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 62539, this pair ranks #86,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of draft vs drain
Shared letters: adr. Private to "draft": ft. Private to "drain": in.
"draft" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "drain" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "draft" and "drain" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "draft" vs "drain" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "draft" and "drain" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "draft" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drain" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #86,555 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "draft" and "drain" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drain vs dray". 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 #86,555 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.