draguevsdragueurTell them apart

Which to use

“drague” and “dragueur” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,951
“drague” frequency rank
#39,754
“dragueur” frequency rank
51705
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drague dragueur
Definition Filet muni d’un racloir servant à la pêche à la traîne. Sorte d'engin de forage.

Where the eye mixes drague and dragueur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. drague runs 6 letters (CCVCVV) against dragueur's 8 (CCVCVVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
drague
8 ch
dragueur

Why the eye confuses drague with dragueur

A purely visual mix-up. drague (\dʁaɡ\) and dragueur (\dʁa.ɡœʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “drague” sits inside “dragueur”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51705, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drague is recorded at frequency rank #11,951, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁaɡ\. dragueur is at rank #39,754, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁa.ɡœʁ\.

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 51705, this pair ranks #153,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drague vs dragueur

Shared letters: adegru. Private to "drague": -. Private to "dragueur": -.

"drague" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "dragueur" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drague ← dargue · ddrague · drageu · draggue · drauge · drgaue · drrague · rdague
  • dragueur ← dargueur · ddragueur · drageuur · draggueur · dragueru · dragueurr · draguuer · draugeur

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drague" for "dragueur" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dʁaɡ\ versus \dʁa.ɡœʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "drague" or "dragueur"?
"drague" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,951 in our French list, against #39,754 for "dragueur". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drague" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dragueur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #153,045 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drague" and "dragueur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dragues vs dragueur". 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 #153,045 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