# dour vs dow

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### dour
*adjective · IPA /ˈdʊə/ · frequency rank #49,880*
Stern, harsh and forbidding.

### dow
*verb · IPA /daʊ/ · frequency rank #12,409*
To be worth.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-09-02.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/dour-vs-dow