druryvsdulyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: drury is a noun, duly is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“drury” is a noun and “duly” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,012
“drury” frequency rank
#16,220
“duly” frequency rank
46232
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drury duly
Definition Love, especially sexual love; courtship, sex. In a due, fit, or becoming manner; as it ought to be; suitably; properly.

Letter map: drury vs duly

Shared letters muted; letters that set drury and duly apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
drury
4 ch
duly

Role in the sentence - drury and duly

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: drury is anoun and dulyanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46232, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drury is recorded at frequency rank #30,012, classified as anoun. duly is at rank #16,220, tagged as anadv, pronounced /ˈdʒuːli/.

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 46232, this pair ranks #213,744 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drury vs duly

Shared letters: duy. Private to "drury": r. Private to "duly": l.

"drury" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "duly" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • druryddrury · drrury · drruy · drurry · druryy · druyr · durry · rdury
  • dulydduly · dluy · dully · dulyy · duyl · udly

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "drury" and "duly" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drury" is a noun and "duly" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "drury" vs "duly" - which ranks higher?
"duly" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,220 in our English list, against #30,012 for "drury". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "drury" and "duly".

  • Full dictionary entry for "drury" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duly" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #213,744 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drury" and "duly" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dour vs drury". 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 #213,744 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