Which to use
“rung” is a noun and “Rus” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #22,497
- “rung” frequency rank
- #26,234
- “Rus” frequency rank
- 48731
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rung | Rus |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | A crosspiece forming a step of a ladder; a round. | A people made up of Scandinavian warrior merchants who travelled Eastern European river-roads from the eighth century, and whose settlements around Novgorod, Kiev/Kyiv and the Volga and Dnieper/Dnipro gave rise to the Rus' principalities. |
Where the eye mixes rung and Rus
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between rung and Rus
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rung is /ɹʌŋ/ while Rus is /ɹuːs/. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48731, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rung is recorded at frequency rank #22,497, classified as anoun, pronounced /ɹʌŋ/. Rus is at rank #26,234, tagged as aname, pronounced /ɹuːs/.
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 48731, this pair ranks #190,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of rung vs Rus
Shared letters: ru. Private to "rung": gn. Private to "Rus": s.
"rung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "Rus" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- rung ← rnug · rrung · rugn · rungg · runng · urng
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "rung" for "Rus" ever safe?
Frequency check: "rung" vs "Rus" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "rung" and "Rus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "rung" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Rus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #190,281 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rung" and "Rus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rua vs Rus". 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 #190,281 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.