Which to use
“dour” is an adjective and “Dr” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,880
- “dour” frequency rank
- #570
- “Dr” frequency rank
- 50450
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dour | Dr |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Stern, harsh and forbidding. | Doctor, a title used before a doctor's name or surname (Dr Jane Doe, Dr Doe) |
Letter map: dour vs Dr
Shared letters muted; letters that set dour and Dr apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for dour / Dr
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dour is anadjective and Dranoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50450, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dour is recorded at frequency rank #49,880, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈdʊə/. Dr is at rank #570, tagged as anoun.
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 50450, this pair ranks #174,154 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dour vs Dr
Shared letters: dr. Private to "dour": ou. Private to "Dr": -.
"dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "Dr" · 2 letters · shape CC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dour" for "Dr" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "dour" or "Dr" show up more?
What to do next
Pair "dour" vs "Dr" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "dour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Dr" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #174,154 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dour" and "Dr" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dour 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 #174,154 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.