dotavsdutyWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: dota is a verb, duty is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dota” is a verb and “duty” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,229
“dota” frequency rank
#25,611
“duty” frequency rank
50840
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dota duty
Definition Tercera persona del singular (él, ella, ello; usted, 2.ª persona) del presente de indicativo de dotar. Deber, obligación.

Where the eye mixes dota and duty

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dota and duty follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
dota
4 ch
duty

Visual trap between dota and duty

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dota is [ˈd̪ot̪a] while duty is /ˈdjuː.ti/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50840, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dota is recorded at frequency rank #25,229, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈd̪ot̪a]. duty is at rank #25,611, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdjuː.ti/.

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 50840, this pair ranks #101,069 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dota vs duty

Shared letters: dt. Private to "dota": ao. Private to "duty": uy.

"dota" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "duty" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dota ← ddota · doat · dotta · dtoa · odta
  • duty ← dduty · dtuy · dutty · dutyy · duyt · udty

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dota" and "duty" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dota" is a verb and "duty" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary Spanish text, does "dota" or "duty" show up more?
"dota" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,229 in our Spanish list, against #25,611 for "duty". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dota" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #101,069 of 323,831 scored Spanish confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dota" and "duty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dont vs dota". 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 #101,069 of 323,831 scored Spanish pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list