dur vs duty, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“dur” is an adjective and “duty” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,793
“dur” frequency rank: #1,994
“duty” frequency rank: 41787
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	dur	duty
Definition	Major; in the major mode.	That which one is morally or legally obligated to do.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set dur and duty apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

3 ch

dur

4 ch

duty

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dur is /duːɹ/ while duty is /ˈdjuː.ti/. 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 41787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dur is recorded at frequency rank #39,793, classified as anadj, pronounced /duːɹ/. duty is at rank #1,994, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈdjuː.ti/.

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 41787, this pair ranks #255,199 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dur vs duty

Shared letters: du. Private to "dur": r. Private to "duty": ty.

"dur" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "duty" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

duty ← dduty · dtuy · dutty · dutyy · duyt · udty

Frequency comparison

dur#39,793

duty#1,994

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dur" and "duty" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dur" is an adjective and "duty" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "dur" or "duty"?

"duty" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,994 in our English list, against #39,793 for "dur". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering dur vs duty

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “dur”; for a noun, it's “duty”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “dur” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable