Which to use
“doormat” and “doorway” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,173
- “doormat” frequency rank
- #14,745
- “doorway” frequency rank
- 58918
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | doormat | doorway |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A coarse mat at the entrance to a house, upon which one wipes one's shoes. | The passage of a door; a door-shaped entrance into a house or a room. |
Where the eye mixes doormat and doorway
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. doormat (CVVCCVC) and doorway (CVVCCVV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Visual trap between doormat and doorway
A purely visual mix-up. doormat (/ˈdɔːˌmæt/) and doorway (/ˈdɔɹweɪ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58918, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
doormat is recorded at frequency rank #44,173, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɔːˌmæt/. doorway is at rank #14,745, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɔɹweɪ/.
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 58918, this pair ranks #109,437 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of doormat vs doorway
Shared letters: ador. Private to "doormat": mt. Private to "doorway": wy.
"doormat" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC · "doorway" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "doormat" and "doorway" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "doormat" or "doorway"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "doormat" and "doorway" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "doormat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "doorway" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #109,437 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "doormat" and "doorway" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "doorman vs doormat". 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 #109,437 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.