do's vs dob, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“do's” is a noun and “dob” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,780
“do's” frequency rank: #44,170
“dob” frequency rank: 83950
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	do's	dob
Definition	Alternative form of dos (plural of do)	To report a person to someone in authority for a wrongdoing. (For transitive forms see dob in, dob on.)

Letter map: do's vs dob

Shared letters muted; letters that set do's and dob apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

do's

3 ch

dob

Part-of-speech tell for do's / dob

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: do's is anoun and dobaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83950, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

do's is recorded at frequency rank #39,780, classified as anoun. dob is at rank #44,170, tagged as averb, pronounced /dɑb/.

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 83950, this pair ranks #12,880 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of do's vs dob

Shared letters: do. Private to "do's": s. Private to "dob": b.

"do's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "dob" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "do's" for "dob" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "do's" is a noun and "dob" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "do's" or "dob"?

"do's" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #39,780 in our English list, against #44,170 for "dob". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "do's" and "dob".

Full dictionary entry for "do's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dob" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #12,880 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"do's" and "dob" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dob vs dox". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #12,880 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.