gagnéevsgarnieWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#14,942
“gagnée” frequency rank
#31,046
“garnie” frequency rank
45988
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature gagnée garnie
Definition Féminin singulier de gagné. Féminin singulier de garni.

Where the eye mixes gagnée and garnie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. gagnée and garnie follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
gagnée
6 ch
garnie

Why the eye confuses gagnée with garnie

A purely visual mix-up. gagnée (\ɡa.ɲe\) and garnie (\ɡaʁ.ni\) 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 45988, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

gagnée is recorded at frequency rank #14,942, classified as anadj, pronounced \ɡa.ɲe\. garnie is at rank #31,046, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ɡaʁ.ni\.

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 45988, this pair ranks #198,517 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of gagnée vs garnie

Shared letters: aegn. Private to "gagnée": é. Private to "garnie": ir.

"gagnée" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "garnie" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • garnieagrnie · ganrie · garnei · garnnie · garrnie · ggarnie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "gagnée" for "garnie" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ɡa.ɲe\ versus \ɡaʁ.ni\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "gagnée" or "garnie"?
"gagnée" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,942 in our French list, against #31,046 for "garnie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "gagnée" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "garnie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #198,517 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "gagnée" and "garnie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "garnie vs garnies". 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 #198,517 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