do vs dur, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“do” is a verb and “dur” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#50
“do” frequency rank: #39,793
“dur” frequency rank: 39843
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	do	dur
Definition	A syntactic marker.	Major; in the major mode.

Where the eye mixes do and dur

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

2 ch

3 ch

dur

Visual trap between do and dur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: do is /də/ while dur is /duːɹ/. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39843, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

do is recorded at frequency rank #50, classified as averb, pronounced /də/. dur is at rank #39,793, tagged as anadj, pronounced /duːɹ/.

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 39843, this pair ranks #273,001 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of do vs dur

Shared letters: d. Private to "do": o. Private to "dur": ru.

"do" · 2 letters · shape CV · "dur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "do" for "dur" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "do" is a verb and "dur" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary English text, does "do" or "dur" show up more?

"do" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #50 in our English list, against #39,793 for "dur". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

Full dictionary entry for "do" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "dur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #273,001 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"do" and "dur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dox vs dur". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #273,001 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.