Which to use
“dog” is a noun and “dour” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #826
- “dog” frequency rank
- #49,880
- “dour” frequency rank
- 50706
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dog | dour |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A mammal of the family Canidae: | Stern, harsh and forbidding. |
Where the eye mixes dog and dour
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dog is /dɒɡ/ while dour is /ˈdʊə/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50706, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dog is recorded at frequency rank #826, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɒɡ/. dour is at rank #49,880, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdʊə/.
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 50706, this pair ranks #171,895 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dog vs dour
Shared letters: do. Private to "dog": g. Private to "dour": ru.
"dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur