Word Confusion: Dose versus Doze

Posted February 23, 2013 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Sometimes I’m not sure if I’m reading Keystone Kops or a serious story when I fall across this particular confusion.

Of course, it’s always possible that somewhere in the storyline someone is intending to slip a dose of poison to a dozing person or . . . is that bore someone into dozing himself into a dose?

Wait, I’m confused . . .

Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.

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Dose	Doze
Orange Pills in Blisters on a White Background is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Flickr. — Multiple doses coming right up.	Dozing Kitten is in the public domain, via Max Pixel.
Part of Grammar:
Noun; Verb, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: doses Gerund: dosing Third person present verb: doses Past tense or past participle: dosed Present participle: dosing	Noun ¹; Verb ²; Verb ¹, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: dozes Gerund: dozing Third person present verb: dozes Past tense or past participle: dozed Present participle: dozing
Noun: Quantity of medicine or drug taken or recommended to be taken at a particular time A substance, situation, or quantity of anything analogous to medicine, especially of something disagreeable [Vinification] An amount of sugar added in the production of champagne [Physics] The quantity of ionizing radiation absorbed by a unit mass of matter, especially living tissue [Slang] A case of gonorrhea or syphilis Verb, intransitive: To take a dose of medicine Verb, transitive: Administer a quantity of medicine or drug to a person or animal Adulterate or blend a substance with another substance To divide as a medicine into doses To treat with an application or agent	Noun: A short light sleep ¹ Nap Verb: [Informal] To clear or level with a bulldozer ² Verb, intransitive: Sleep lightly or fitfully ¹ Fall lightly asleep [Often followed by off] To fall into a light sleep unintentionally To sleep for a short time Nap To be dull or half asleep Verb, transitive: To pass or spend time in drowsiness (often followed by away) ¹
Examples:
Noun: Take a dose of cold medicine before you go to bed. Be careful that the dose of radiation doesn’t exceed the safety limits. Damn, I got a dose of the clap. I wanted to give you a dose of the hell you put me through. Computer games are great in small doses. Failing the exam was a hard dose to swallow. I prefer champagnes with less sugar, such as an extra-brut which has a dose between 0 and 6 grams per liter of residual sugars. Kenny added a healthy dose of skepticism to the discussion. Verb, intransitive: He is forever dosing but he is only getting worse. Verb, transitive: He dosed himself with vitamins. The champagne was dosed with sugar. That creep dosed my drink! Most patients are dosed at 50 milligrams per day.	Noun: I had a short doze this afternoon. After lunch, I had a doze. He slipped off into a light doze. Verb: You’ll need to doze that house down by tomorrow afternoon. Doze that hill down now. Use the bulldozer to doze the wall down. Verb, intransitive: He found his mother dozing by the fire. No, he’s just dozing. I must have dozed off. Verb, transitive: He dozed away the afternoon. He dozed the summer away. “The room is empty of everything but the bed in which I lie, a small table, and a plain wooden chair occupied by a dozing Helene” (Tahir).
Derivatives:
Adjective: well-dosed Noun: dosage, doser, superdose, underdose Verb, transitive: underdose, underdosed, underdosing	Adjective: dozy Noun: dozer
Phrasal Verb
	doze off
History of the Word:
Late Middle English from the French, via late Latin from the Greek dosis meaning gift from didonai meaning give.	Mid-17th century in the sense of stupefy, bewilder, or make drowsy. It may be related to the Danish døse meaning make drowsy. 1940-45 as a shortened form of bulldoze.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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