Which to use
“dour” is an adjective and “dud” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,880
- “dour” frequency rank
- #29,251
- “dud” frequency rank
- 79131
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dour | dud |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Stern, harsh and forbidding. | A device or machine that is useless because it does not work properly or has failed to work, such as a bomb, or explosive projectile. |
Where the eye mixes dour and dud
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dour is /ˈdʊə/ while dud is /dʌd/. 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 79131, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dour is recorded at frequency rank #49,880, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈdʊə/. dud is at rank #29,251, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dʌd/.
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 79131, this pair ranks #22,826 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dour vs dud
Shared letters: du. Private to "dour": or. Private to "dud": -.
"dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "dud" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur