decvsduchTell them apart

Quick tell: dec is a abbrev, duch is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#40,469
“dec” frequency rank
#48,829
“duch” frequency rank
89298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dec duch
Definition Abkürzung für den Monat december; Dezember gedankliche, nicht körperliche Eigenschaften des Menschen: Geist

Letter map: dec vs duch

Shared letters muted; letters that set dec and duch apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. dec runs 3 letters (CVC) against duch's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
dec
4 ch
duch

Grammar separator: dec vs duch

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dec is anabbrev and duchanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 89298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dec is recorded at frequency rank #40,469, classified as anabbrev. duch is at rank #48,829, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dʊx].

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 89298, this pair ranks #58,840 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dec vs duch

Shared letters: cd. Private to "dec": e. Private to "duch": hu.

"dec" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "duch" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duch ← dcuh · dduch · ducch · duchh · duhc · udch

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dec" for "duch" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dec" is an abbrev and "duch" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "dec" or "duch" show up more?
"dec" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #40,469 in our German list, against #48,829 for "duch". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "dec" vs "duch" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dec" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #58,840 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dec" and "duch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duch vs dusch". 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 #58,840 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list