Which to use
“drone” is a noun and “drunk” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,472
- “drone” frequency rank
- #49,033
- “drunk” frequency rank
- 58505
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drone | drunk |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Engin mobile terrestre, aérien, naval ou spatial, sans équipage embarqué, programmé ou télécommandé, et qui peut être réutilisé. | Ivre, saoul. |
Where the eye mixes drone and drunk
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses drone with drunk
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drone is \dʁon\ while drunk is \drʌŋk\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58505, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drone is recorded at frequency rank #9,472, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁon\. drunk is at rank #49,033, tagged as anadj, pronounced \drʌŋk\.
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 58505, this pair ranks #108,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of drone vs drunk
Shared letters: dnr. Private to "drone": eo. Private to "drunk": ku.
"drone" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV · "drunk" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "drone" for "drunk" ever safe?
Which is more common, "drone" or "drunk"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "drone" and "drunk" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drone" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drunk" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #108,667 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drone" and "drunk" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drum vs drunk". 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 #108,667 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.