droguevsdroguéeTell them apart

Which to use

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

#2,772
“drogue” frequency rank
#37,283
“droguée” frequency rank
40055
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drogue droguée
Definition Substance psychotrope provoquant le plus souvent une dépendance et utilisée pour modifier son état mental, en particulier substance illégale dont l’usage est réprouvé. Femme qui se drogue.

Where the eye mixes drogue and droguée

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. drogue runs 6 letters (CCVCVV) against droguée's 7 (CCVCVVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
drogue
7 ch
droguée

Why the eye confuses drogue with droguée

A purely visual mix-up. drogue (\dʁɔɡ\) and droguée (\dʁɔ.ɡe\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40055, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drogue is recorded at frequency rank #2,772, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔɡ\. droguée is at rank #37,283, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔ.ɡe\.

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 40055, this pair ranks #243,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drogue vs droguée

Shared letters: degoru. Private to "drogue": -. Private to "droguée": é.

"drogue" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVV  ·  "droguée" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drogue ← ddrogue · dorgue · drgoue · drogeu · droggue · drouge · drrogue · rdogue

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drogue" for "droguée" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dʁɔɡ\ versus \dʁɔ.ɡe\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "drogue" vs "droguée" - which ranks higher?
"drogue" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,772 in our French list, against #37,283 for "droguée". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drogue" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "droguée" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #243,399 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drogue" and "droguée" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dragues vs droguée". 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 #243,399 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