Which to use
“duct” and “dun” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #13,330
- “duct” frequency rank
- #18,810
- “dun” frequency rank
- 32140
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | duct | dun |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A pipe, tube or canal which carries gas or liquid from one place to another. | A brownish grey colour. |
Where the eye mixes duct and dun
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. duct (/dʌkt/) and dun (/dʌn/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32140, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
duct is recorded at frequency rank #13,330, classified as anoun, pronounced /dʌkt/. dun is at rank #18,810, tagged as anoun, pronounced /dʌn/.
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 32140, this pair ranks #340,322 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of duct vs dun
Shared letters: du. Private to "duct": ct. Private to "dun": n.
"duct" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "dun" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- duct ← dcut · dduct · ducct · ductt · dutc · udct