doonvsdozeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: doon is a adverb, doze is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“doon” is an adverb and “doze” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,338
“doon” frequency rank
#44,749
“doze” frequency rank
90087
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doon doze
Definition Down. To sleep lightly or briefly; to nap, snooze.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set doon and doze apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch
doon
4 ch
doze

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doon is /duːn/ while doze is /doʊz/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 90087, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doon is recorded at frequency rank #45,338, classified as anadv, pronounced /duːn/. doze is at rank #44,749, tagged as averb, pronounced /doʊz/.

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 90087, this pair ranks #4,520 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of doon vs doze

Shared letters: do. Private to "doon": n. Private to "doze": ez.

"doon" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "doze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doonddoon · dono · doonn · odon
  • dozeddoze · doez · dozze · dzoe · odze

Frequency comparison

doon#45,338
doze#44,749

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "doon" and "doze" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doon" is an adverb and "doze" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "doon" or "doze"?
"doze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,749 in our English list, against #45,338 for "doon". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering doon vs doze

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adverb, it's “doon”; for a verb, it's “doze”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “doon” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list