doe vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“doe” is a noun and “du” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,000
“doe” frequency rank: #38
“du” frequency rank: 33038
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	doe	du
Definition	Hirschkuh: ein weiblicher Hirsch	der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird

Letter map: doe vs du

Shared letters muted; letters that set doe and du apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch

doe

2 ch

Role in the sentence - doe and du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: doe is anoun and duapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33038, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doe is recorded at frequency rank #33,000, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. du is at rank #38, tagged as apron, pronounced [duː].

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 33038, this pair ranks #1,694,630 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of doe vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "doe": eo. Private to "du": u.

"doe" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doe" for "du" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doe" is a noun and "du" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "doe" or "du" show up more?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 in our German list, against #33,000 for "doe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "doe" and "du". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "doe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,694,630 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"doe" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "doe vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,694,630 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.