draguevsdrogueTell them apart

Which to use

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

#11,951
“drague” frequency rank
#2,772
“drogue” frequency rank
14723
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drague drogue
Definition Filet muni d’un racloir servant à la pêche à la traîne. Substance psychotrope provoquant le plus souvent une dépendance et utilisée pour modifier son état mental, en particulier substance illégale dont l’usage est réprouvé.

Where the eye mixes drague and drogue

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. drague and drogue follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
drague
6 ch
drogue

Why the eye confuses drague with drogue

A purely visual mix-up. drague (\dʁaɡ\) and drogue (\dʁɔɡ\) 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 a single letter - a in “drague” becomes o in “drogue”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14723, 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\. drogue is at rank #2,772, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔɡ\.

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 14723, this pair ranks #395,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of drague vs drogue

Shared letters: degru. Private to "drague": a. Private to "drogue": o.

"drague" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "drogue" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drague ← dargue · ddrague · drageu · draggue · drauge · drgaue · drrague · rdague
  • drogue ← ddrogue · dorgue · drgoue · drogeu · droggue · drouge · drrogue · rdogue

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "drague" and "drogue" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\dʁaɡ\ versus \dʁɔɡ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "drague" or "drogue"?
"drogue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,772 in our French list, against #11,951 for "drague". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drague" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drogue" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,472 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drague" and "drogue" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "draghi vs drague". 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 #395,472 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