dicevsdureWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“dice” and “dure” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#44,417
“dice” frequency rank
#1,912
“dure” frequency rank
46329
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dice dure
Definition Pluriel de die. Dés à jouer. Femme pleine de dureté, insensible ou très sévère.

Where the eye mixes dice and dure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
dice
4 ch
dure

Why the eye confuses dice with dure

A purely visual mix-up. dice (\ˈdaɪs\) and dure (\dyʁ\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46329, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dice is recorded at frequency rank #44,417, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdaɪs\. dure is at rank #1,912, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dyʁ\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 46329, this pair ranks #195,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dice vs dure

Shared letters: de. Private to "dice": ci. Private to "dure": ru.

"dice" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "dure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dicedcie · ddice · dicce · diec · idce
  • dureddure · drue · duer · durre · udre

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "dice" and "dure" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\ˈdaɪs\ versus \dyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dice" or "dure" show up more?
"dure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,912 in our French list, against #44,417 for "dice". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "dice" and "dure" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #195,828 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dice" and "dure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dèche vs dice". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #195,828 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list