duan
"duan" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“duan” is uncommon English (frequency #60,041 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #60,041
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A division of a poem, especially an epic poem or a Scottish poem; a canto.
Corpus desk
Index EN-duan · duan · English
duan · rank #60,041 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #60,041
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH ducal
Nearest frequency peer: ducal (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “duan”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- dotting
dotting
39,965 corpus weight
- draping
draping
39,962 corpus weight
- duan
duan
39,960 corpus weight
- ducal
ducal
39,959 corpus weight
- earnestness
earnestness
39,958 corpus weight
- ebbs
ebbs
39,957 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “duan” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | duan |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #60,041 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “duan” in English
Rare enough to double-check
duan is uncommon English at frequency #60,041 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for duan, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Irish and Scottish Gaelic duan, from Middle Irish dúan, from Proto-Indo-European *dh₂p-no- (compare Old Armenian տաւն (tawn, “feast, celebration”), Ancient Greek δαπάνη (dapánē, “cost”), Old Norse tafn (“sacrificial animal”) and Latin damnum (“damage”)… The correct English form is duan, spelled D-U-A-N.
Definition
- 1A division of a poem, especially an epic poem or a Scottish poem; a canto.
- 2A poem or song.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how duan appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Till what is call'd, in Ossian, the fifth Duan
Etymology
From Irish and Scottish Gaelic duan, from Middle Irish dúan, from Proto-Indo-European *dh₂p-no- (compare Old Armenian տաւն (tawn, “feast, celebration”), Ancient Greek δαπάνη (dapánē, “cost”), Old Norse tafn (“sacrificial animal”) and Latin damnum (“damage”)), from *deh₂p- (“to sacrifice”).
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "duan", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).