dogvsdropTell them apart

Which to use

“dog” and “drop” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,950
“dog” frequency rank
#16,859
“drop” frequency rank
28809
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dog drop
Definition Chien (animal), pitou, animal de l'espèce Canis familiaris ou Canis lupus familiaris qui a été domestiqué il y a plusieurs milliers d'années et d’apparence variable du fait de la sélection humaine. Coup de pied en demi-volée par lequel un joueur de rugby tente d’envoyer le ballon par-dessus la barre horizontale du but de l’équipe adverse.

Where the eye mixes dog and drop

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
dog
4 ch
drop

Why the eye confuses dog with drop

A purely visual mix-up. dog (\ˈdɔɡ\) and drop (\dʁɔp\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28809, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dog is recorded at frequency rank #11,950, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdɔɡ\. drop is at rank #16,859, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dʁɔp\.

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 28809, this pair ranks #320,569 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dog vs drop

Shared letters: do. Private to "dog": g. Private to "drop": pr.

"dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "drop" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dropddrop · dorp · dropp · drpo · drrop · rdop

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dog" for "drop" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdɔɡ\ versus \dʁɔp\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dog" or "drop"?
"dog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,950 in our French list, against #16,859 for "drop". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drop" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,569 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dog" and "drop" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dray vs drop". 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 #320,569 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list