doorsvsdornWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“doors” and “dorn” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#39,293
“doors” frequency rank
#12,693
“dorn” frequency rank
51986
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doors dorn
Definition Plural des Substantivs door Hand

Where the eye mixes doors and dorn

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. doors runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against dorn's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
doors
4 ch
dorn

Why the eye confuses doors with dorn

A purely visual mix-up. doors ([dɔːʳz]) 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51986, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doors is recorded at frequency rank #39,293, classified as anoun, pronounced [dɔːʳz]. 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 51986, this pair ranks #1,114,317 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doors vs dorn

Shared letters: dor. Private to "doors": s. Private to "dorn": n.

"doors" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "dorn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doors ← ddoors · doorrs · doorss · doosr · doros · dors · odors
  • dorn ← ddorn · donr · dornn · dorrn · dron · odrn

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doors" for "dorn" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([dɔːʳz] versus [ˈdɔrn]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "doors" vs "dorn" - which ranks higher?
"dorn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,693 in our German list, against #39,293 for "doors". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "doors" 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 #1,114,317 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doors" and "dorn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Docks vs doors". 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 #1,114,317 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