doisvsdosWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#707
“dois” frequency rank
#961
“dos” frequency rank
1668
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dois dos
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de devoir. Partie du corps humain située au-dessus du postérieur, depuis le cou jusqu’aux reins.

Where the eye mixes dois and dos

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dois
3 ch
dos

Visual trap between dois and dos

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dois is \dwa\ while dos is \do\. 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 1668, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dois is recorded at frequency rank #707, classified as averb, pronounced \dwa\. dos is at rank #961, tagged as anoun, pronounced \do\.

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 1668, this pair ranks #437,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dois vs dos

Shared letters: dos. Private to "dois": i. Private to "dos": -.

"dois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "dos" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doisddois · doiss · dosi · odis

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dois" and "dos" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dois" is a verb and "dos" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dois" vs "dos" - which ranks higher?
"dois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #707 in our French list, against #961 for "dos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "dois" and "dos" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dois" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #437,603 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dois" and "dos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs dos". 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 #437,603 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