Which to use
“dour” and “douze” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #44,426
- “dour” frequency rank
- #2,472
- “douze” frequency rank
- 46898
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dour | douze |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Austère, dur, inhospitalier. | Onze plus un, adjectif numéral cardinal correspondant au nombre 12. |
Where the eye mixes dour and douze
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dour runs 4 letters (CVVC) against douze's 5 (CVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: dour vs douze
A purely visual mix-up. dour (\ˈdʊə(ɹ)\) and douze (\duz\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46898, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dour is recorded at frequency rank #44,426, classified as anadj, pronounced \ˈdʊə(ɹ)\. douze is at rank #2,472, tagged as anadj, pronounced \duz\.
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 46898, this pair ranks #191,176 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of dour vs douze
Shared letters: dou. Private to "dour": r. Private to "douze": ez.
"dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "douze" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "dour" and "douze" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "dour" vs "douze" - which ranks higher?
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 "dour" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "douze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #191,176 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dour" and "douze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs dour". 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 #191,176 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.