DAT vs duty, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“DAT” is an abbrev and “duty” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,524
“DAT” frequency rank: #21,948
“duty” frequency rank: 28472
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	DAT	duty
Definition	Abkürzung für „digital audio tape“ (Digitales Audio Tonband)	die moralische oder gesetzliche Pflicht

Letter map: DAT vs duty

Shared letters muted; letters that set DAT and duty apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch

DAT

4 ch

duty

Grammar separator: DAT vs duty

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: DAT is anabbrev and dutyanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28472, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

DAT is recorded at frequency rank #6,524, classified as anabbrev, pronounced […]. duty is at rank #21,948, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈdjuːti].

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 28472, this pair ranks #1,784,169 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of DAT vs duty

Shared letters: dt. Private to "DAT": a. Private to "duty": uy.

"DAT" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "duty" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

duty ← dduty · dtuy · dutty · dutyy · duyt · udty

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "DAT" for "duty" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "DAT" is an abbrev and "duty" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "DAT" vs "duty" - which ranks higher?

"DAT" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,524 in our German list, against #21,948 for "duty". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "DAT" and "duty". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "DAT" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "duty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,784,169 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"DAT" and "duty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duch vs duty". 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 #1,784,169 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.