doutesvsdouvesConfusable pair

Which to use

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

#4,748
“doutes” frequency rank
#42,833
“douves” frequency rank
47581
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doutes douves
Definition Pluriel de doute. Pluriel de douve.

Where the eye mixes doutes and douves

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. doutes and douves follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
doutes
6 ch
douves

Look-alike desk: doutes vs douves

A purely visual mix-up. doutes (\dut\) and douves (\duv\) 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 a single letter - t in “doutes” becomes v in “douves”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47581, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doutes is recorded at frequency rank #4,748, classified as anoun, pronounced \dut\. douves is at rank #42,833, tagged as anoun, pronounced \duv\.

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 47581, this pair ranks #185,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doutes vs douves

Shared letters: deosu. Private to "doutes": t. Private to "douves": v.

"doutes" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "douves" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • doutes ← ddoutes · dotues · douets · doutess · doutse · douttes · duotes · odutes
  • douves ← ddouves · douevs · douvess · douvse · douvves · dovues · duoves · oduves

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "doutes" and "douves" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\dut\ versus \duv\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "doutes" vs "douves" - which ranks higher?
"doutes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,748 in our French list, against #42,833 for "douves". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "doutes" and "douves" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "doutes" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "douves" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #185,833 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doutes" and "douves" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "douées vs douves". 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 #185,833 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