du vs duc, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#38
“du” frequency rank: #48,075
“duc” frequency rank: 48113
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	du	duc
Definition	der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird	der Herzog, der Führer

Where the eye mixes du and duc

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

2 ch

3 ch

duc

Visual trap between du and duc

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: du is [duː] while duc is [duk]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “du” sits inside “duc”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48113, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

du is recorded at frequency rank #38, classified as apron, pronounced [duː]. 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 48113, this pair ranks #1,260,359 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of du vs duc

Shared letters: du. Private to "du": -. Private to "duc": c.

"du" · 2 letters · shape CV · "duc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "du" and "duc" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "du" is a pronoun and "duc" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "du" vs "duc" - which ranks higher?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 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.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "du" and "duc" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

Full dictionary entry for "du" 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 #1,260,359 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"du" and "duc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duc vs dusch". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,260,359 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.