Which to use
“doe” is a noun and “douse” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #9,035
- “doe” frequency rank
- #47,588
- “douse” frequency rank
- 56623
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | doe | douse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A female deer; also used of similar animals such as antelope (less commonly a goat, as nanny is also used). | To plunge suddenly into water; to duck; to immerse. |
Where the eye mixes doe and douse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doe is /dəʊ/ while douse is /daʊs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56623, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
doe is recorded at frequency rank #9,035, classified as anoun, pronounced /dəʊ/. douse is at rank #47,588, tagged as averb, pronounced /daʊs/.
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 56623, this pair ranks #124,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of doe vs douse
Shared letters: deo. Private to "doe": -. Private to "douse": su.
"doe" · 3 letters · shape CVV · "douse" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
- douse ← ddouse · dosue · doues · dousse · duose · oduse