dug
/dʌɡ/
"dug" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dug” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #8,784) as a verb. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #8,784
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - simple past and past participle of dig (replacing earlier digged)
Corpus desk
Index EN-dug · dug · English
dug · rank #8,784 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #8,784
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dough
Nearest frequency peer: dough (-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.
Frequency neighbours of confusable “dug”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- dentist
dentist
91,220 corpus weight
- dough
dough
91,218 corpus weight
- dug
dug
91,217 corpus weight
- endangered
endangered
91,216 corpus weight
- envelope
envelope
91,215 corpus weight
- exhibited
exhibited
91,214 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “dug” against nearest ranked English headwords, not a reprint of the confusable-pair desk.
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 | dug |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dʌɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #8,784 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “dug”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for dug is neighbouring look-alikes ("dw", "Dx", …), not just typos; it is averb pronounced /dʌɡ/. Frequency #8,784 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Gloss: "simple past and past participle of dig (replacing earlier digged)".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for dug, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "dw", "Dx", "DV", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is dug, spelled D-U-G.
Definition
- 1simple past and past participle of dig (replacing earlier digged)
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 "dug", not the corpus desk frequency band.