dog vs dog's, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#826
“dog” frequency rank: #12,759
“dog's” frequency rank: 13585
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dog	dog's
Definition	A mammal of the family Canidae:	shortened form of dog's bollocks.

Letter map: dog vs dog's

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

3 ch

dog

5 ch

dog's

Corpus notes: dog and dog's

dog and dog's 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 2 extra letter(s) - “dog” sits inside “dog's”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13585, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dog is recorded at frequency rank #826, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɒɡ/. dog's is at rank #12,759, tagged as anoun.

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 13585, this pair ranks #474,927 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dog vs dog's

Shared letters: dgo. Private to "dog": -. Private to "dog's": s.

"dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "dog's" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dog" and "dog's" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No. They differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “dog” sits inside “dog's”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.

In ordinary English text, does "dog" or "dog's" show up more?

"dog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #826 in our English list, against #12,759 for "dog's". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "dog" and "dog's". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "dog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dog's" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #474,927 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"dog" and "dog's" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "degas vs dog's". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #474,927 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.