douaivsdouéesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: douai is a verb, douées is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“douai” is a verb and “douées” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,113
“douai” frequency rank
#46,709
“douées” frequency rank
62822
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature douai douées
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif passé simple du verbe douer. Féminin pluriel de doué.

Same sound, different letters: douai vs douées

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 3 letters.

5 ch
douai
6 ch
douées

Homophone desk: douai vs douées

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: douai and douées carry the same recorded pronunciation, \dwe\. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is averb, the other anadjective, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62822, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

douai is recorded at frequency rank #16,113, classified as averb, pronounced \dwe\. douées is at rank #46,709, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dwe\.

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 62822, this pair ranks #85,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of douai vs douées

Shared letters: dou. Private to "douai": ai. Private to "douées": esé.

"douai" · 5 letters · shape CVVVV  ·  "douées" · 6 letters · shape CVVVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • douaiddouai · doaui · douia · duoai · oduai

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "douai" and "douées" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "douai" is a verb and "douées" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "douai" or "douées"?
"douai" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,113 in our French list, against #46,709 for "douées". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've separated the homophone pair "douai" / "douées". Follow the links when you need the full entry or a neighbour that trips the same ear.

  • Full dictionary entry for "douai" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "douées" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #85,107 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "douai" and "douées" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dombes vs douées". 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 #85,107 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