digsvsdogConfusable pair

Which to use

“digs” and “dog” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#17,590
“digs” frequency rank
#826
“dog” frequency rank
18416
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature digs dog
Definition plural of dig A mammal of the family Canidae:

Where the eye mixes digs and dog

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

4 ch
digs
3 ch
dog

Visual trap between digs and dog

A purely visual mix-up. digs (/dɪɡz/) and dog (/dɒɡ/) 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 18416, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

digs is recorded at frequency rank #17,590, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɪɡz/. dog is at rank #826, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɒɡ/.

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 18416, this pair ranks #445,032 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of digs vs dog

Shared letters: dg. Private to "digs": is. Private to "dog": o.

"digs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • digsddigs · dgis · digss · disg · idgs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "digs" and "dog" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/dɪɡz/ versus /dɒɡ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "digs" vs "dog" - which ranks higher?
"dog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #826 in our English list, against #17,590 for "digs". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "digs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dog" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #445,032 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "digs" and "dog" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "digs vs dikes". 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 #445,032 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list