Which to use
“doctor” and “doctor's” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,332
- “doctor” frequency rank
- #11,024
- “doctor's” frequency rank
- 12356
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | doctor | doctor's |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A physician; a member of the medical profession; one who is trained and licensed to heal the sick or injured. The final examination and qualification may award a doctor degree in which case the post-nominal letters are DO, DPM, MD, DMD, or DDS in the US, or MBBS or BDS in the UK. | A doctor’s surgery. |
Where the eye mixes doctor and doctor's
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. doctor (/ˈdɒktə(ɹ)/) and doctor's (/ˈdɑktɚz/) 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 2 extra letter(s) - “doctor” sits inside “doctor's”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12356, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
doctor is recorded at frequency rank #1,332, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɒktə(ɹ)/. doctor's is at rank #11,024, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɑktɚz/.
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 12356, this pair ranks #482,027 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of doctor vs doctor's
Shared letters: cdort. Private to "doctor": -. Private to "doctor's": s.
"doctor" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC · "doctor's" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- doctor ← dcotor · ddoctor · docctor · docotr · doctorr · doctro · docttor · dotcor