Which to use
“dough” is a noun and “doughty” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #8,783
- “dough” frequency rank
- #35,694
- “doughty” frequency rank
- 44477
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dough | doughty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A thick, malleable substance made by mixing flour with other ingredients such as water, eggs, or butter, that is made into a particular form and then baked. | Bold; brave, courageous. |
Where the eye mixes dough and doughty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. dough runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against doughty's 7 (CVVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between dough and doughty
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dough is /dəʊ/ while doughty is /ˈdaʊti/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “dough” sits inside “doughty”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44477, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dough is recorded at frequency rank #8,783, classified as anoun, pronounced /dəʊ/. doughty is at rank #35,694, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈdaʊti/.
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 44477, this pair ranks #230,164 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dough vs doughty
Shared letters: dghou. Private to "dough": -. Private to "doughty": ty.
"dough" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "doughty" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dough" and "doughty" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary English text, does "dough" or "doughty" show up more?
After this comparison
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "dough" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "doughty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #230,164 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dough" and "doughty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dougherty vs doughty". 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 #230,164 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.