douce
/duːs/
"douce" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“douce” is uncommon English (frequency #78,543 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #78,543
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Sweet; nice; pleasant.
Corpus desk
Index EN-douce · douce · English
douce · rank #78,543 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #78,543
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dopa
Nearest frequency peer: dopa (-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 “douce”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- distally
distally
21,462 corpus weight
- dooms
dooms
21,461 corpus weight
- doorstop
doorstop
21,460 corpus weight
- dopa
dopa
21,459 corpus weight
- douce
douce
21,458 corpus weight
- dousing
dousing
21,457 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “douce” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | douce |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /duːs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #78,543 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “douce” in English
Rare enough to double-check
douce is uncommon English at frequency #78,543 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed /duːs/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for douce, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English douce, from Old French dolz, dous, Middle French doux, douce, from Latin dulcis (“sweet”). Doublet of dolce, doux, and dulce. The correct English form is douce, spelled D-O-U-C-E.
Definition
- 1Sweet; nice; pleasant.
- 2Serious and quiet; steady, not flighty or casual; sober.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how douce appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The bookseller, douce man, had seen too many eccentric customers to be shocked by the vehemence of his questioner.
what would you say of a man with plenty of silver that bided all by his lone and made his own bed and did his own baking when he might have had a wife to make him douce and brave?
Etymology
From Middle English douce, from Old French dolz, dous, Middle French doux, douce, from Latin dulcis (“sweet”). Doublet of dolce, doux, and dulce.
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 "douce", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).