dun
/dʌn/
"dun" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dun” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #18,810) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #18,810
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A brownish grey colour.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dun · dun · English
dun · rank #18,810 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #18,810
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH dreamt
Nearest frequency peer: dreamt (-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 neighbourhood for “dun”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- doggy
doggy
81,194 corpus weight
- dole
dole
81,193 corpus weight
- dreamt
dreamt
81,192 corpus weight
- dun
dun
81,191 corpus weight
- eerie
eerie
81,190 corpus weight
- enraged
enraged
81,188 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “dun” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | dun |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dʌn/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #18,810 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dun” sits in English frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for dun is neighbouring look-alikes ("dw", "Dx", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced /dʌn/. Frequency #18,810 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Gloss: "A brownish grey colour.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for dun, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. 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.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English dun, donn, dunne, from Old English dunn (“dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black”), from Proto-West Germanic *duʀn, from Proto-Germanic *duznaz, *dusnaz (“brown, yellow”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust”… The correct English form is dun, spelled D-U-N.
Definition
- 1A brownish grey colour.
Etymology
From Middle English dun, donn, dunne, from Old English dunn (“dun, dingy brown, bark-colored, brownish black”), from Proto-West Germanic *duʀn, from Proto-Germanic *duznaz, *dusnaz (“brown, yellow”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰewh₂- (“to smoke, raise dust”). Cognate with Old Saxon dun (“brown, dark”), Old High German tusin (“ash-gray, dull brown, pale yellow, dark”), Old Norse dunna (“female mallard; duck”). Alternative etymology derives the Old English word from Brythonic (compare Middle Welsh dwnn (“dark (red)”)), from Proto-Celtic *dusnos (compare Old Irish donn and Scottish Gaelic donn (“brown”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰews- (compare Old Saxon dosan (“chestnut brown”)). More at dusk.
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 "dun", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
You've looked up "dun". Here's where to go from here.
- "dun" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "dw". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #18,810 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more English words in the "D" letter cohort. D–Z browse
- PlainSpell rotates a curated Word of the Day from the English corpus, a passive way to discover vocabulary. Word of the Day
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.