dobvsdothTell them apart

Which to use

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

#44,170
“dob” frequency rank
#24,145
“doth” frequency rank
68315
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dob doth
Definition To report a person to someone in authority for a wrongdoing. (For transitive forms see dob in, dob on.) third-person singular simple present indicative of do

Where the eye mixes dob and doth

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

3 ch
dob
4 ch
doth

Why the eye confuses dob with doth

A purely visual mix-up. dob (/dɑb/) and doth (/dʌθ/) 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 68315, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dob is recorded at frequency rank #44,170, classified as averb, pronounced /dɑb/. doth is at rank #24,145, tagged as averb, pronounced /dʌθ/.

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 68315, this pair ranks #59,420 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dob vs doth

Shared letters: do. Private to "dob": b. Private to "doth": ht.

"dob" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "doth" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dothddoth · doht · dothh · dotth · dtoh · odth

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dob" and "doth" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/dɑb/ versus /dʌθ/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dob" or "doth"?
"doth" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,145 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.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "dob" and "doth" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dob" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "doth" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,420 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dob" and "doth" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dob 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 #59,420 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