dosa
/ˈdəʊsə/
"dosa" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dosa” is uncommon English (frequency #65,065 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #65,065
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A type of thin south Indian pancake made from fermented lentils and rice blended with water, typically served with chutney or sambar.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dosa · dosa · English
dosa · rank #65,065 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #65,065
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH Dorking
Nearest frequency peer: Dorking (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “dosa”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- dogfish
dogfish
34,940 corpus weight
- Donn
Donn
34,938 corpus weight
- Dorking
Dorking
34,937 corpus weight
- dosa
dosa
34,936 corpus weight
- doublet
doublet
34,935 corpus weight
- drenching
drenching
34,931 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “dosa” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dosa |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈdəʊsə/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #65,065 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “dosa” in English
Rare enough to double-check
dosa is uncommon English at frequency #65,065 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈdəʊsə/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A type of thin south Indian pancake made from fermented lentils and rice blended with water, typically served with chutney or sambar.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for dosa, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Kannada ದೋಸೆ (dōse). The correct English form is dosa, spelled D-O-S-A.
Definition
- 1A type of thin south Indian pancake made from fermented lentils and rice blended with water, typically served with chutney or sambar.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how dosa appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Eric dipped a piece of the dosa in the coconut chutney.
The restaurant's dosas were truly atrocious, so I stopped going there.
Etymology
From Kannada ದೋಸೆ (dōse).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "dosa", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).