Which to use
“does” is a verb and “dose” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #177
- “does” frequency rank
- #5,124
- “dose” frequency rank
- 5301
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | does | dose |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | third-person singular simple present indicative of do | A measured portion of medicine taken at any one time. |
Where the eye mixes does and dose
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: does is /dəz/ while dose is /dəʊs/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (es ↔ se) - a transposition the eye reads straight past, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5301, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
does is recorded at frequency rank #177, classified as averb, pronounced /dəz/. dose is at rank #5,124, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dəʊs/.
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 5301, this pair ranks #515,852 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of does vs dose
Shared letters: deos. Private to "does": -. Private to "dose": -.
"does" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "dose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV