deitiesvsdutiesWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“deities” and “duties” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#21,488
“deities” frequency rank
#4,153
“duties” frequency rank
25641
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature deities duties
Definition plural of deity plural of duty

Where the eye mixes deities and duties

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
deities
6 ch
duties

Why the eye confuses deities with duties

A purely visual mix-up. deities (/ˈdiː.ɪ.tiz/) and duties (/duːtiz/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25641, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

deities is recorded at frequency rank #21,488, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈdiː.ɪ.tiz/. duties is at rank #4,153, tagged as anoun, pronounced /duːtiz/.

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 25641, this pair ranks #392,728 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of deities vs duties

Shared letters: deist. Private to "deities": -. Private to "duties": u.

"deities" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVVC  ·  "duties" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • deitiesddeities · deiites · deiteis · deitiess · deitise · deitties · detiies · dieties
  • dutiesdduties · dtuies · duites · duteis · dutiess · dutise · dutties · udties

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "deities" and "duties" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/ˈdiː.ɪ.tiz/ versus /duːtiz/) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary English text, does "deities" or "duties" show up more?
"duties" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,153 in our English list, against #21,488 for "deities". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "deities" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duties" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #392,728 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "deities" and "duties" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dailies vs deities". 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 #392,728 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list