Revised as of
11 Nov 2022
When I read “you’ve doused me too many times to count”, I immediately imagined someone pouring buckets of water over her. Again and again.
Turns out he meant dosed.
So, a dose is both noun and verb, which is either a certain quantity of something that is given to another, or it’s the act of giving that quantity to someone.
As I researched, I came across dowse, which turns out to be an alternate spelling for douse. However, just because they are alternate spellings for each other, do NOT make the mistake of doing so.
Keep douse and dowse separate.
A douse is also both noun and verb, except the noun version is rarely used. That verb form, though, is incredibly handy in putting out a fire or plunging into liquid.
If you need to find water to douse someone, you may need to dowse for it. Most likely you’ll need a divining rod to dowse for the water, or even searching for minerals or metals — anything that’s underground. You using a metal detector? You’re dowsing.
You may also want to explore “Dose versus Doze“.
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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| Dosed | Doused | Dowsed |
|---|---|---|
Woman taking Hemp CBD Pills by Elsa Olofsson is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons. — She dosed herself. |
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Woman Doused with Water by Jordi Zamora is under the CC0 1.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons and courtesy of Unsplash. |
Dowsing Person is under the CC0 1.0 license, via Open Clip Art. — This man is dowsing for water. |
| Part of Grammar: | ||
| Morpheme: dose
Noun; Verb, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: doses Third person present verb: doses |
Morpheme: douse
Noun; Verb, intransitive & transitive Plural for the noun: douses Third person present verb: douses Alternate spelling: dowse |
Morpheme: dowse
Verb, intransitive & transitive Third person present verb: dowses Alternate spelling: douse |
| 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: Verb, transitive:
To divide as a medicine into doses To treat with an application or agent |
Noun: [British dialect] A stroke or blow An immersion
Verb, intransitive: Verb, transitive:
Extinguish (a fire or light) [Informal] To remove
[Sailing] To lower or take in (a sail, mast, or the like) suddenly [Sailing] To slacken (a line) suddenly [Sailing] To stow quickly [Archaic] To strike or beat |
Verb, intransitive: Practice using a forked branch or stick to search for underground water or minerals To search for underground water, minerals, etc, using a forked branch or stick, i.e., a divining rod
Verb, transitive: |
| Examples: | ||
| Noun: A dose of ibuprofen helps with muscle aches. Notice how x-ray techs operate from a different room so they don’t get a dose of radiation? Don’t go out with him. I heard he’s a dose of the clap. In this story, I read about a serial killer who was giving his mother a dose of what she’d meted out to him. They’re talking about using social media in small doses. Having Janey say no was a hard dose to swallow. Sweet champagnes have a higher dose of sugar than the brut. The party enjoyed healthy doses of laughter. Verb, intransitive: Verb, transitive: He dosed his coffee with a lot of sugar. A good bartender keeps an eye on those who have dosed drinks in the past. John was dosed at 50 milligrams per day. |
Noun: A douse! Give ’em another! “In winter a douse in cold water helps the looks and adds to the style of the carcass, but they should be thoroughly dried before packing” (Cyphers). He sure got a douse of cold water! Verb, intransitive: “It is no jesting, trivial matter, The woman douses back, and some one else flips at Doi-san with a washcloth. Verb, transitive: Stewards appeared and the fire was doused. Nothing could douse her sudden euphoria. She doused the clothes in soapy water. The children doused each other with the hose. She quickly doused the candle’s flame with her fingertips. They doused the sail. Douse the topsail! Douse him! Douse him! |
Verb, intransitive: Water is easy to dowse for. He dowsed over the ground and found a vein. They found oil when they dowsed last week. Verb, transitive: Joe came over and dowsed the new well. Raine failed to dowse the location of a buried kiln that had been identified by a magnetometer. |
| Derivatives: | ||
| Adjective: well-dosed Noun: dosage, doser, superdose, underdose Verb, transitive: underdose, underdosed, underdosing |
Noun: douser | Noun: dowser, dowsing |
| History of the Word: | ||
| Late Middle English from the French, via the late Latin from the Greek dosis meaning gift from didonai meaning give. | Mid 16th century, perhaps imitative. | Late 17th century and of unknown origin. |
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.
Resources for Dosed vs Doused vs Dowsed
1911, Cyphers Series on Practical Poultry Keeping, Issue 1, p 74.
Apple Dictionary.com
Cambridge Dictionary: douse
Dictionary.com: dose, douse, dowse
“Douse vs. dowse.” Grammarist. n.d. Web. 21 Sept 2022. <https://grammarist.com/spelling/douse-dowse/>.
The Free Dictionary: douse
Huidbras, p ii
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. douse
Merriam-Webster: dose
Weeks, Jennifer. “Seven Spectacular Places Saved by the Environmental Movement.” Slate Magazine. <https://slate.com/technology/2013/04/environmental-success-stories-on-earth-day-visit-places-saved-by-conservationists.html>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
A Love Sick Man Taking Some of Doctor Hymen’s Pills to Try and Cure Himself is a watercolour painting and is in the public domain, via Wellcome Images. The edges of the painting have been filtered into an oval. Hypnotist Dowsing with Pendulum is under the CC0 license, via PxHere and has had its background removed. A Crippled Man Being Doused in Water From a Holy Spring is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons and courtesy of Wellcome Images.
