douchervsduchésTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#27,410
“doucher” frequency rank
#39,757
“duchés” frequency rank
67167
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doucher duchés
Definition Arroser au moyen d’une douche. Pluriel de duché.

Where the eye mixes doucher and duchés

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. doucher runs 7 letters (CVVCCVC) against duchés's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
doucher
6 ch
duchés

Look-alike desk: doucher vs duchés

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doucher is \du.ʃe\ while duchés is \dy.ʃe\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67167, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doucher is recorded at frequency rank #27,410, classified as averb, pronounced \du.ʃe\. duchés is at rank #39,757, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dy.ʃe\.

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 67167, this pair ranks #64,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of doucher vs duchés

Shared letters: cdhu. Private to "doucher": eor. Private to "duchés": sé.

"doucher" · 7 letters · shape CVVCCVC  ·  "duchés" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doucher ← ddoucher · docuher · douccher · doucehr · doucherr · douchher · douchre · douhcer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doucher" for "duchés" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doucher" is a verb and "duchés" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "doucher" or "duchés" show up more?
"doucher" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,410 in our French list, against #39,757 for "duchés". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "doucher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duchés" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #64,597 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doucher" and "duchés" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs duchés". 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 #64,597 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