dozevsdueConfusable pair

Quick tell: doze is a verb, due is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“doze” is a verb and “due” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,749
“doze” frequency rank
#442
“due” frequency rank
45191
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doze due
Definition To sleep lightly or briefly; to nap, snooze. Owed or owing.

Where the eye mixes doze and due

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
doze
3 ch
due

Look-alike desk: doze vs due

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doze is /doʊz/ while due is /djuː/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45191, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doze is recorded at frequency rank #44,749, classified as averb, pronounced /doʊz/. due is at rank #442, tagged as anadj, pronounced /djuː/.

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 45191, this pair ranks #223,552 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doze vs due

Shared letters: de. Private to "doze": oz. Private to "due": u.

"doze" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "due" · 3 letters · shape CVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dozeddoze · doez · dozze · dzoe · odze

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doze" for "due" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doze" is a verb and "due" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "doze" or "due" show up more?
"due" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #442 in our English list, against #44,749 for "doze". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "doze" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "due" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #223,552 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doze" and "due" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dox vs doze". 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 #223,552 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