Which to use
“dog” and “drug” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #11,950
- “dog” frequency rank
- #29,732
- “drug” frequency rank
- 41682
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dog | drug |
|---|---|---|
| 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. | Médicament, drogue. |
Where the eye mixes dog and drug
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dog runs 3 letters (CVC) against drug's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: dog vs drug
A purely visual mix-up. dog (\ˈdɔɡ\) and drug (\dɹʌɡ\) 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 41682, 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\. drug is at rank #29,732, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɹʌɡ\.
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 41682, this pair ranks #231,256 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dog vs drug
Shared letters: dg. Private to "dog": o. Private to "drug": ru.
"dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "drug" · 4 letters · shape CCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- drug ← ddrug · drgu · drrug · drugg · durg · rdug
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dog" for "drug" ever safe?
Which is more common, "dog" or "drug"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "dog" and "drug" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drug" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #231,256 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dog" and "drug" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dray vs drug". 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 #231,256 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.