dogvsdogsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“dog” and “dogs” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#8,326
“dog” frequency rank
#18,312
“dogs” frequency rank
26638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dog dogs
Definition cão, cachorro plural de dog

Where the eye mixes dog and dogs

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

3 ch
dog
4 ch
dogs

Look-alike desk: dog vs dogs

A purely visual mix-up. dog (/dɔɡ/) and dogs (/dɔɡz/) 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 extra letter(s) - “dog” sits inside “dogs”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dog is recorded at frequency rank #8,326, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɔɡ/. dogs is at rank #18,312, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dɔɡz/.

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 26638, this pair ranks #42,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dog vs dogs

Shared letters: dgo. Private to "dog": -. Private to "dogs": s.

"dog" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dogs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dogsddogs · dgos · doggs · dogss · dosg · odgs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dog" and "dogs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (/dɔɡ/ versus /dɔɡz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "dog" or "dogs"?
"dog" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,326 in our Portuguese list, against #18,312 for "dogs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dog" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dogs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #42,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dog" and "dogs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dogs vs drogo". 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 #42,473 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list