do'svsdodoWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#39,780
“do's” frequency rank
#33,624
“dodo” frequency rank
73404
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature do's dodo
Definition Alternative form of dos (plural of do) A large, flightless bird, †Raphus cucullatus, related to the pigeon, that is now extinct (since the 1600s) and was native to Mauritius.

Letter map: do's vs dodo

Shared letters muted; letters that set do's and dodo apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. do's runs 3 letters (CVC) against dodo's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
do's
4 ch
dodo

Pair insight - do's / dodo

do's and dodo are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73404, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

do's is recorded at frequency rank #39,780, classified as anoun. dodo is at rank #33,624, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdəʊdəʊ/.

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 73404, this pair ranks #39,756 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of do's vs dodo

Shared letters: do. Private to "do's": s. Private to "dodo": -.

"do's" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dodo" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dodo ← ddodo · ddoo · doddo · dood · oddo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "do's" for "dodo" ever safe?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "do's" or "dodo"?
"dodo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,624 in our English list, against #39,780 for "do's". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "do's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dodo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #39,756 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "do's" and "dodo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "do's vs dox". 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 #39,756 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