du
\dy\
The verdict
“du” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #17) as an article. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #17
- frequency rank, French
- 404,891
- “D” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.
Corpus desk
Index FR-du · du · French
du · rank #17 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #17
- LEN-SHORT 2 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 404,891
- PHOTO-FINISH une
Nearest frequency peer: une (-1 rank slots)
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 “du”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- A
A
99,987 corpus weight
- pas
pas
99,986 corpus weight
- une
une
99,985 corpus weight
- du
du
99,984 corpus weight
- il
il
99,983 corpus weight
- pour
pour
99,982 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “du” sits against the nearest ranked French 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 | du |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Article |
| IPA | \dy\ |
| Letters | 2 |
| Frequency rank | #17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “du” sits in French frequency
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for du is neighbouring look-alikes ("DV", "dy", …), not just typos; it is anarticle pronounced \dy\. Frequency #17 among 404,891 “D” headwords. 3 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for du, a sign its spelling follows regular French conventions. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "DV", "dy", "dz", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is du, spelled D-U.
Definition
- 1Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.
- 2(Faire du …) Une activité d’une certaine durée de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom dénombrable.
- 3(du + nom de l’auteur) Une certaine œuvre de. Note d’usage : Utilisé même devant une voyelle.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how du appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Il faut boire du lait tous les jours.
J’ai fait du tennis.
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 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
PlainSpell is rendered directly from structured Wiktionary extracts and open word-frequency lists, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of May 6, 2026. Primary sources: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) and FrequencyWords.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "du"?
What does "du" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "du"?
How do you pronounce "du"?
What language does "du" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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.