doutevsdoveConfusable pair

Which to use

“doute” and “dove” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#489
“doute” frequency rank
#35,471
“dove” frequency rank
35960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doute dove
Definition Incertitude sur l’existence ou la vérité d’une chose, sur l'exactitude ou la fausseté d’une idée, d’une affirmation. Douve.

Letter map: doute vs dove

Shared letters muted; letters that set doute and dove apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. doute runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against dove's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
doute
4 ch
dove

Corpus notes: doute and dove

doute and dove are indexed as a confusable French pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doute is recorded at frequency rank #489, classified as anoun, pronounced \dut\. dove is at rank #35,471, tagged as anoun.

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 35960, this pair ranks #272,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doute vs dove

Shared letters: deo. Private to "doute": tu. Private to "dove": v.

"doute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "dove" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doute ← ddoute · dotue · douet · doutte · duote · odute
  • dove ← ddove · doev · dovve · dvoe · odve

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "doute" and "dove" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "doute" vs "dove" - which ranks higher?
"doute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #489 in our French list, against #35,471 for "dove". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "doute" and "dove".

  • Full dictionary entry for "doute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dove" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #272,970 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doute" and "dove" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "domi vs dove". 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 #272,970 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