douésvsdouteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: doués is a adjective, doute is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#14,248
“doués” frequency rank
#489
“doute” frequency rank
14737
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doués doute
Definition Masculin pluriel de doué. Incertitude sur l’existence ou la vérité d’une chose, sur l'exactitude ou la fausseté d’une idée, d’une affirmation.

Where the eye mixes doués and doute

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
doués
5 ch
doute

Look-alike desk: doués vs doute

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doués is \dwe\ while doute is \dut\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14737, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doués is recorded at frequency rank #14,248, classified as anadj, pronounced \dwe\. doute is at rank #489, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dut\.

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 14737, this pair ranks #395,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of doués vs doute

Shared letters: dou. Private to "doués": . Private to "doute": et.

"doués" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "doute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • douteddoute · dotue · douet · doutte · duote · odute

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "doués" and "doute" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doués" is an adjective and "doute" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "doués" or "doute" show up more?
"doute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #489 in our French list, against #14,248 for "doués". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "doués" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "doute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,426 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doués" and "doute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "déçues vs doués". 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 #395,426 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