Which to use
“do's” is a noun and “dour” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #39,780
- “do's” frequency rank
- #49,880
- “dour” frequency rank
- 89660
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | do's | dour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Alternative form of dos (plural of do) | Stern, harsh and forbidding. |
Letter map: do's vs dour
Shared letters muted; letters that set do's and dour apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. do's runs 3 letters (CVC) against dour's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Grammar separator: do's vs dour
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: do's is anoun and douranadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89660, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
do's is recorded at frequency rank #39,780, classified as anoun. dour is at rank #49,880, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdʊə/.
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 89660, this pair ranks #4,959 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of do's vs dour
Shared letters: do. Private to "do's": s. Private to "dour": ru.
"do's" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "do's" and "dour" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "do's" or "dour" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "do's" vs "dour" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "do's" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #4,959 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "do's" and "dour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dour 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 #4,959 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.