Which to use
“doute” and “doutes” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #489
- “doute” frequency rank
- #4,748
- “doutes” frequency rank
- 5237
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | doute | doutes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Incertitude sur l’existence ou la vérité d’une chose, sur l'exactitude ou la fausseté d’une idée, d’une affirmation. | Pluriel de doute. |
Same sound, different letters: doute vs doutes
Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 5 letters.
Same sound, different spelling - doute / doutes
This is the hard kind. doute and doutes are pronounced identically (\dut\) and both work as anoun. Neither the ear nor the grammar will rescue you; only the meaning does, so the glosses below are the whole decision. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “doute” sits inside “doutes”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5237, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
doute is recorded at frequency rank #489, classified as anoun, pronounced \dut\. doutes is at rank #4,748, 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 5237, this pair ranks #429,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of doute vs doutes
Shared letters: deotu. Private to "doute": -. Private to "doutes": s.
"doute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV · "doutes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "doute" and "doutes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary French text, does "doute" or "doutes" show up more?
Useful next steps
"doute" and "doutes" share a sound, keep the gloss open, then jump to the headword or a nearby trap.
- Full dictionary entry for "doute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "doutes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #429,565 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "doute" and "doutes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "douées vs doutes". 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 #429,565 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.