dormivsdoumaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#6,289
“dormi” frequency rank
#30,982
“douma” frequency rank
37271
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dormi douma
Definition Participe passé masculin singulier de dormir. Chambre basse du parlement en Russie.

Where the eye mixes dormi and douma

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dormi (CVCCV) and douma (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
dormi
5 ch
douma

Look-alike desk: dormi vs douma

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dormi is \dɔʁ.mi\ while douma is \du.ma\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37271, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dormi is recorded at frequency rank #6,289, classified as averb, pronounced \dɔʁ.mi\. douma is at rank #30,982, tagged as anoun, pronounced \du.ma\.

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 37271, this pair ranks #263,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dormi vs douma

Shared letters: dmo. Private to "dormi": ir. Private to "douma": au.

"dormi" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "douma" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dormi ← ddormi · domri · dorim · dormmi · dorrmi · dromi · odrmi
  • douma ← ddouma · domua · douam · doumma · duoma · oduma

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dormi" for "douma" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dormi" is a verb and "douma" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dormi" vs "douma" - which ranks higher?
"dormi" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,289 in our French list, against #30,982 for "douma". 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 "dormi" and "douma" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dormi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "douma" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #263,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dormi" and "douma" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs douma". 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 #263,659 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