dur
/duːɹ/
"dur" is a 3-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dur” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #39,793) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #39,793
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Major; in the major mode.
Corpus desk
Index EN-dur · dur · English
dur · rank #39,793 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #39,793
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH duds
Nearest frequency peer: duds (-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 “dur”
Peers at similar corpus weight, separate from look-alike pairs below
- droplet
droplet
60,212 corpus weight
- drunkard
drunkard
60,211 corpus weight
- duds
duds
60,209 corpus weight
- dur
dur
60,208 corpus weight
- Earp
Earp
60,207 corpus weight
- enabler
enabler
60,204 corpus weight
What this shows Bars place “dur” 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 | dur |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /duːɹ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #39,793 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus rank beside confusables of “dur”
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for dur is neighbouring look-alikes ("dw", "Dx", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced /duːɹ/. Frequency #39,793 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Gloss: "Major; in the major mode.".
dur has no tracked misspelling variants, 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, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: From German Dur, from Latin dūrus (“hard, firm, vigorous”). The correct English form is dur, spelled D-U-R.
Definition
- 1Major; in the major mode.
Etymology
From German Dur, from Latin dūrus (“hard, firm, vigorous”).
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 "dur", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).