doorsvsdoryWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#2,786
“doors” frequency rank
#25,360
“dory” frequency rank
28146
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doors dory
Definition plural of door A small flat-bottomed boat with pointed or somewhat pointed ends, used for fishing both offshore and on rivers.

Where the eye mixes doors and dory

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. doors runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against dory's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
doors
4 ch
dory

Why the eye confuses doors with dory

A purely visual mix-up. doors (/dɔːz/) and dory (/ˈdɔːɹi/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28146, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doors is recorded at frequency rank #2,786, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɔːz/. dory is at rank #25,360, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdɔːɹi/.

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 28146, this pair ranks #373,353 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doors vs dory

Shared letters: dor. Private to "doors": s. Private to "dory": y.

"doors" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "dory" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doors ← ddoors · doorrs · doorss · doosr · doros · dors
  • dory ← ddory · dorry · doryy · doyr · droy · odry

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "doors" and "dory" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/dɔːz/ versus /ˈdɔːɹi/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "doors" or "dory"?
"doors" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,786 in our English list, against #25,360 for "dory". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "doors" and "dory" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "doors" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dory" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #373,353 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doors" and "dory" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dory vs dox". 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 #373,353 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list