duck
/dʌk/
"duck" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“duck” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #5,031 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #5,031
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | duck |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dʌk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #5,031 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “duck” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for duck is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dʌk/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,031 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for duck, with forms such as "dcuk", "dduck", and "ducck". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "due", "duo", "dug", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English ducken, duken, douken (“to duck, plunge under water, submerge”), from Old English *dūcan (“to dip, dive, duck”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūkan, from Proto-Germanic *dūkaną (“to dip, dive, bend down, stoop, duck”). Cognates Related to S… The correct English form is duck, spelled D-U-C-K.
Definition
- 1To quickly lower (the head or body), often in order to prevent it from being struck by something.
- 2To lower (something) into water; to thrust or plunge under liquid and suddenly withdraw.
- 3To go under the surface of water and immediately reappear; to plunge one's head into water or other liquid.
- 4To bow.
- 5To evade doing something, especially something considered a responsibility.
- 6To lower the volume of (a sound) so that other sounds in the mix can be heard more clearly.
- 7To enter a place for a short moment.
Etymology
From Middle English ducken, duken, douken (“to duck, plunge under water, submerge”), from Old English *dūcan (“to dip, dive, duck”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūkan, from Proto-Germanic *dūkaną (“to dip, dive, bend down, stoop, duck”). Cognates Related to Scots dulk (“to duck”), Middle Dutch ducken (“to duck”), Low German ducken (“to duck”), German ducken (“to duck”), Danish dukke, dykke (“to dive”). Related also to Scots dook, douk (“to bathe, drench, soak, baptise”), West Frisian dûke (“to plunge, dive”), Dutch duiken (“to dive, plunge, duck”), Low German duken (“to duck, dive, stoop”), German tauchen (“to dive, plunge, immerse, duck”), Swedish dyka (“to dive, submerge”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: dcuk,dduck,ducck,duckk,dukc,udck
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of duck - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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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Using “duck”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-U-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dʌk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “due” - see the side-by-side comparison. duck vs due
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.