drückevsdukeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: drücke is a verb, duke is a particle, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“drücke” is a verb and “duke” is a particle - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,636
“drücke” frequency rank
#13,578
“duke” frequency rank
24214
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drücke duke
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs drücken -

Letter map: drücke vs duke

Shared letters muted; letters that set drücke and duke apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. drücke runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against duke's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
drücke
4 ch
duke

Part-of-speech tell for drücke / duke

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: drücke is averb and dukeaparticle. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24214, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drücke is recorded at frequency rank #10,636, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈdʁʏkə]. duke is at rank #13,578, tagged as aparticle, pronounced […].

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 24214, this pair ranks #1,850,812 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of drücke vs duke

Shared letters: dek. Private to "drücke": crü. Private to "duke": u.

"drücke" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "duke" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duke ← dduke · dkue · duek · dukke · udke

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "drücke" and "duke" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drücke" is a verb and "duke" a particle, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "drücke" or "duke"?
"drücke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,636 in our German list, against #13,578 for "duke". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "drücke" and "duke".

  • Full dictionary entry for "drücke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duke" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,850,812 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drücke" and "duke" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duke vs puzzles". 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 #1,850,812 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