Which to use
“door” and “dorn” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,962
- “door” frequency rank
- #12,693
- “dorn” frequency rank
- 38655
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | door | dorn |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tür | Hand |
Where the eye mixes door and dorn
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: door vs dorn
A purely visual mix-up. door ([dɔː]) and dorn ([ˈdɔrn]) 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 38655, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
door is recorded at frequency rank #25,962, classified as anoun, pronounced [dɔː]. dorn is at rank #12,693, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈdɔrn].
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 38655, this pair ranks #1,558,174 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of door vs dorn
Shared letters: dor. Private to "door": -. Private to "dorn": n.
"door" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "dorn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "door" and "dorn" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "door" or "dorn"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "door" and "dorn" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "door" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dorn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,558,174 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "door" and "dorn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "door vs dörr". 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 #1,558,174 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.