dowse
/daʊs/
"dowse" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dowse” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Alternative form of douse (“to plunge into water”).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dowse |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /daʊs/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dowse” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dowse is 5 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /daʊs/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Alternative form of douse (“to plunge into water”).".
Zero misspellings are on record for dowse in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is dowse, spelled D-O-W-S-E.
Definition
- 1Alternative form of douse (“to plunge into water”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “dowse”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-O-W-S-E - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /daʊs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.