do'svsdovesTell them apart

Which to use

“do's” and “doves” 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
#25,361
“doves” frequency rank
65141
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature do's doves
Definition Alternative form of dos (plural of do) plural of dove

Letter map: do's vs doves

Shared letters muted; letters that set do's and doves apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
do's
5 ch
doves

Spelling & dictionary notes on do's vs doves

do's and doves 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 differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65141, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

do's is recorded at frequency rank #39,780, classified as anoun. doves is at rank #25,361, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dʌvz/.

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 65141, this pair ranks #74,207 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of do's vs doves

Shared letters: dos. Private to "do's": -. Private to "doves": ev.

"do's" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "doves" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dovesddoves · doevs · dovess · dovse · dovves · dvoes · odves

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "do's" for "doves" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "do's" vs "doves" - which ranks higher?
"doves" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,361 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.

What to do next

Pair "do's" vs "doves" 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 "doves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #74,207 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "do's" and "doves" 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 #74,207 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