DosevsdukeWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#4,324
“Dose” frequency rank
#15,358
“duke” frequency rank
19682
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Dose duke
Definition Boîte de conserve, canette. Duc.

Where the eye mixes Dose and duke

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Dose
4 ch
duke

Why the eye confuses Dose with duke

A purely visual mix-up. Dose (\ˈdoːzə\) and duke (\djuːk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19682, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Dose is recorded at frequency rank #4,324, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdoːzə\. duke is at rank #15,358, tagged as anoun, pronounced \djuːk\.

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 19682, this pair ranks #372,055 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Dose vs duke

Shared letters: de. Private to "Dose": os. Private to "duke": ku.

"Dose" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "duke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Doseddose · dosse · dsoe · odse
  • dukedduke · dkue · duek · dukke · udke

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Dose" and "duke" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdoːzə\ versus \djuːk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Dose" or "duke"?
"Dose" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,324 in our French list, against #15,358 for "duke". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Dose" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duke" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #372,055 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Dose" and "duke" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duke vs dust". 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 #372,055 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