duce
/ˈduːtʃeɪ/
"duce" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“duce” is uncommon English (frequency #52,284 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #52,284
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An authoritarian leader, especially Benito Mussolini.
Corpus desk
Index EN-duce · duce · English
duce · rank #52,284 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #52,284
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH droop
Nearest frequency peer: droop (-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 “duce”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Dostoevsky
Dostoevsky
47,720 corpus weight
- draughts
draughts
47,719 corpus weight
- droop
droop
47,718 corpus weight
- duce
duce
47,717 corpus weight
- duplicity
duplicity
47,716 corpus weight
- Dyck
Dyck
47,715 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “duce” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | duce |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈduːtʃeɪ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #52,284 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “duce” in English
Rare enough to double-check
duce is uncommon English at frequency #52,284 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈduːtʃeɪ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An authoritarian leader, especially Benito Mussolini.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for duce in our index, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Italian duce. Doublet of doge, duc, duke, and dux. The correct English form is duce, spelled D-U-C-E.
Definition
- 1An authoritarian leader, especially Benito Mussolini.
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian duce. Doublet of doge, duc, duke, and dux.
This word in other languages
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 "duce", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).