donavsdosWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dona is a noun, dos is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dona” is a noun and “dos” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,532
“dona” frequency rank
#14,542
“dos” frequency rank
59074
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dona dos
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs donum „Gabe, Geschenk“ die Kardinalzahl zwischen eins und drei; zwei

Letter map: dona vs dos

Shared letters muted; letters that set dona and dos apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
dona
3 ch
dos

Part-of-speech tell for dona / dos

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dona is anoun and dosanum. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59074, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dona is recorded at frequency rank #44,532, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. dos is at rank #14,542, tagged as anum, pronounced [dos].

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 59074, this pair ranks #838,326 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dona vs dos

Shared letters: do. Private to "dona": an. Private to "dos": s.

"dona" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donaddona · dnoa · doan · odna

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dona" and "dos" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dona" is a noun and "dos" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "dona" or "dos" show up more?
"dos" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,542 in our German list, against #44,532 for "dona". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "dona" and "dos". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dona" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #838,326 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dona" and "dos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dona vs puzzles". 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 #838,326 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list