doingvsdongWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,751
“doing” frequency rank
#17,930
“dong” frequency rank
57681
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doing dong
Definition Participe présent du verbe irrégulier do. Langue du peuple Dong, en Chine.

Where the eye mixes doing and dong

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
doing
4 ch
dong

Visual trap between doing and dong

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doing is \ˈdu.ɪŋ\ while dong is \dɔ̃ɡ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57681, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doing is recorded at frequency rank #39,751, classified as averb, pronounced \ˈdu.ɪŋ\. dong is at rank #17,930, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔ̃ɡ\.

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 57681, this pair ranks #113,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doing vs dong

Shared letters: dgno. Private to "doing": i. Private to "dong": -.

"doing" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "dong" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doingddoing · diong · doign · doingg · doinng · donig · oding
  • dongddong · dnog · dogn · dongg · donng · odng

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doing" for "dong" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doing" is a verb and "dong" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "doing" or "dong"?
"dong" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,930 in our French list, against #39,751 for "doing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "doing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dong" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #113,564 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doing" and "dong" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "djinn vs doing". 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 #113,564 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