domusvsdourTell them apart

Quick tell: domus is a noun, dour is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“domus” is a noun and “dour” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,890
“domus” frequency rank
#44,426
“dour” frequency rank
88316
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature domus dour
Definition Maison d’habitation urbaine destinée à une famille, dans la Rome antique. Austère, dur, inhospitalier.

Letter map: domus vs dour

Shared letters muted; letters that set domus and dour apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. domus runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against dour's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
domus
4 ch
dour

Grammar separator: domus vs dour

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: domus is anoun and douranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 88316, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

domus is recorded at frequency rank #43,890, classified as anoun. dour is at rank #44,426, tagged as anadj, pronounced \ˈdʊə(ɹ)\.

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 88316, this pair ranks #7,155 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of domus vs dour

Shared letters: dou. Private to "domus": ms. Private to "dour": r.

"domus" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • domus ← ddomus · dmous · dommus · domsu · domuss · doums · odmus
  • dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "domus" and "dour" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "domus" is a noun and "dour" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "domus" vs "dour" - which ranks higher?
"domus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #43,890 in our French list, against #44,426 for "dour". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "domus" and "dour". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "domus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dour" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #7,155 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "domus" and "dour" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs dour". 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 #7,155 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