Which to use
“doge” is a noun and “douse” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #30,008
- “doge” frequency rank
- #47,588
- “douse” frequency rank
- 77596
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | doge | douse |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The chief magistrate in the republics of Venice and Genoa. | To plunge suddenly into water; to duck; to immerse. |
Where the eye mixes doge and douse
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. doge runs 4 letters (CVCV) against douse's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between doge and douse
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doge is /dəʊdʒ/ while douse is /daʊs/. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 77596, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
doge is recorded at frequency rank #30,008, classified as anoun, pronounced /dəʊdʒ/. 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 77596, this pair ranks #26,826 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of doge vs douse
Shared letters: deo. Private to "doge": g. Private to "douse": su.
"doge" · 4 letters · shape CVCV · "douse" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "doge" for "douse" ever safe?
Which is more common, "doge" or "douse"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "doge" and "douse" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "doge" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "douse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #26,826 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "doge" and "douse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dour vs douse". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #26,826 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.