jadevsjanWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#12,403
“jade” frequency rank
#8,412
“jan” frequency rank
20815
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature jade jan
Definition Pierre dure et translucide d’une couleur verdâtre ou olivâtre, parfois blanche. Chacune des deux tables du jeu de trictrac.

Where the eye mixes jade and jan

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
jade
3 ch
jan

Look-alike desk: jade vs jan

A purely visual mix-up. jade (\ʒad\) and jan (\ʒɑ̃\) 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 20815, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

jade is recorded at frequency rank #12,403, classified as anoun, pronounced \ʒad\. jan is at rank #8,412, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ʒɑ̃\.

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 20815, this pair ranks #366,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of jade vs jan

Shared letters: aj. Private to "jade": de. Private to "jan": n.

"jade" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "jan" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • jadeajde · jadde · jaed · jdae · jjade

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "jade" and "jan" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ʒad\ versus \ʒɑ̃\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "jade" or "jan" show up more?
"jan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,412 in our French list, against #12,403 for "jade". 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 "jade" and "jan" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "jade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "jan" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #366,360 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "jade" and "jan" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "jade vs jama". 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 #366,360 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