domusvsdonsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#43,890
“domus” frequency rank
#4,067
“dons” frequency rank
47957
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature domus dons
Definition Maison d’habitation urbaine destinée à une famille, dans la Rome antique. Pluriel de don.

Letter map: domus vs dons

Shared letters muted; letters that set domus and dons apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
domus
4 ch
dons

Pair insight - domus / dons

domus and dons are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47957, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

domus is recorded at frequency rank #43,890, classified as anoun. dons is at rank #4,067, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɔ̃\.

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 47957, this pair ranks #182,811 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of domus vs dons

Shared letters: dos. Private to "domus": mu. Private to "dons": n.

"domus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dons" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • domusddomus · dmous · dommus · domsu · domuss · doums · odmus
  • donsddons · dnos · donns · donss · dosn · odns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "domus" for "dons" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary French text, does "domus" or "dons" show up more?
"dons" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,067 in our French list, against #43,890 for "domus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "domus" and "dons".

  • Full dictionary entry for "domus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #182,811 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "domus" and "dons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs domus". 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 #182,811 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