dickvsducTell them apart

Quick tell: dick is a adjective, duc is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dick” is an adjective and “duc” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,181
“dick” frequency rank
#48,075
“duc” frequency rank
51256
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dick duc
Definition vom Umfang her bedeutend, besonders auch von großem Umfang der Herzog, der Führer

Where the eye mixes dick and duc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dick
3 ch
duc

Visual trap between dick and duc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dick is [dɪk] while duc is [duk]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51256, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dick is recorded at frequency rank #3,181, classified as anadj, pronounced [dɪk]. duc is at rank #48,075, tagged as anoun, pronounced [duk].

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 51256, this pair ranks #1,142,466 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dick vs duc

Shared letters: cd. Private to "dick": ik. Private to "duc": u.

"dick" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "duc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dickdcik · ddick · dicck · dickk · dikc · idck

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dick" and "duc" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dick" is an adjective and "duc" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "dick" or "duc" show up more?
"dick" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,181 in our German list, against #48,075 for "duc". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dick" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,142,466 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dick" and "duc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duc 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 #1,142,466 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