Which to use
“dawn” is a noun and “down” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #15,121
- “dawn” frequency rank
- #8,531
- “down” frequency rank
- 23652
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dawn | down |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Aube, aurore, période de demi-jour qui précède le lever du soleil. | Dépressif, déprimé. |
Same sound, different letters: dawn vs down
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.
Homophone desk: dawn vs down
Say them out loud and nothing separates them: dawn and down carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dɔːn\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anoun, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by a single letter - a in “dawn” becomes o in “down”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23652, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dawn is recorded at frequency rank #15,121, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɔːn\. down is at rank #8,531, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dɔn\.
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 23652, this pair ranks #351,222 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of dawn vs down
Shared letters: dnw. Private to "dawn": a. Private to "down": o.
"dawn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "down" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dawn" for "down" ever safe?
Frequency check: "dawn" vs "down" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've separated the homophone pair "dawn" / "down". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.
- Full dictionary entry for "dawn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "down" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #351,222 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dawn" and "down" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dabo vs dawn". 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 #351,222 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.