duckingvsduringWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ducking is a noun, during is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ducking” is a noun and “during” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,130
“ducking” frequency rank
#181
“during” frequency rank
27311
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ducking during
Definition An instance of ducking down, e.g. to hide. For all of a given time interval; throughout; in; pending.

Letter map: ducking vs during

Shared letters muted; letters that set ducking and during apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
ducking
6 ch
during

Part-of-speech tell for ducking / during

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ducking is anoun and duringapreposition. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27311, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ducking is recorded at frequency rank #27,130, classified as anoun. during is at rank #181, tagged as aprep, pronounced /ˈdjʊə.ɹɪŋ/.

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 27311, this pair ranks #379,950 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ducking vs during

Shared letters: dginu. Private to "ducking": ck. Private to "during": r.

"ducking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "during" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duckingdcuking · dducking · duccking · ducikng · duckign · duckingg · duckinng · duckking
  • duringdduring · druing · duirng · durign · duringg · durinng · durnig · durring

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ducking" and "during" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ducking" is a noun and "during" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ducking" or "during"?
"during" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #181 in our English list, against #27,130 for "ducking". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "ducking" and "during".

  • Full dictionary entry for "ducking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "during" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #379,950 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ducking" and "during" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ducking vs duckling". 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 #379,950 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