Which to use
“dour” is an adjective and “duh” is an intj - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #49,880
- “dour” frequency rank
- #12,961
- “duh” frequency rank
- 62841
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dour | duh |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Stern, harsh and forbidding. | A disdainful indication that something is obvious. |
Where the eye mixes dour and duh
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 duh is /dɜː/. 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 intj), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 62841, 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/. duh is at rank #12,961, tagged as anintj, pronounced /dɜː/.
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 62841, this pair ranks #86,244 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of dour vs duh
Shared letters: du. Private to "dour": or. Private to "duh": h.
"dour" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "duh" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dour ← ddour · doru · dourr · duor · odur