duress
/djʊˈɹɛs/
"duress" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“duress” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #28,178 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #28,178
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 9
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Harsh treatment.
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 | duress |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /djʊˈɹɛs/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #28,178 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “duress” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for duress is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /djʊˈɹɛs/. Corpus data places it at rank #28,178 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for duress, with forms such as "dduress", "druess", and "duerss". 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 9 confusable-pair relationships, "durst", "dues", "dress", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed into Middle English from Old French duresse, from Latin duritia (“hardness”), from durus (“hard”). The correct English form is duress, spelled D-U-R-E-S-S.
Definition
- 1Harsh treatment.
- 2Constraint by threat.
- 3Restraint in which a person is influenced, whether by lawful or unlawful forceful compulsion of their liberty by monition or implementation of physical enforcement; legally for the incurring of civil liability, of a citizen's arrest, or of subrogation, or illegally for the committing of an offense, of forcing a contract, or of using threats.
Etymology
Borrowed into Middle English from Old French duresse, from Latin duritia (“hardness”), from durus (“hard”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: dduress,druess,duerss,dures,durress,durses,udress
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of duress - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “duress”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-U-R-E-S-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /djʊˈɹɛs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “durst” - see the side-by-side comparison. duress vs durst
- 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.