did vs du, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“did” is a verb and “du” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,176
“did” frequency rank: #17
“du” frequency rank: 24193
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	did	du
Definition	Prétérit de do.	Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable.

Where the eye mixes did and du

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch

did

2 ch

Why the eye confuses did with du

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: did is \dɪd\ while du is \dy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24193, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

did is recorded at frequency rank #24,176, classified as averb, pronounced \dɪd\. du is at rank #17, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \dy\.

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 24193, this pair ranks #348,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of did vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "did": i. Private to "du": u.

"did" · 3 letters · shape CVC · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "did" for "du" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "did" is a verb and "du" an article, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary French text, does "did" or "du" show up more?

"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17 in our French list, against #24,176 for "did". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

Full dictionary entry for "did" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #348,016 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"did" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs did". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #348,016 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.