digvsdrugWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dig is a onomatopoeia, drug is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dig” is an onomatopoeia and “drug” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,253
“dig” frequency rank
#29,732
“drug” frequency rank
68985
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dig drug
Definition Son métallique. Médicament, drogue.

Letter map: dig vs drug

Shared letters muted; letters that set dig and drug apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. dig runs 3 letters (CVC) against drug's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
dig
4 ch
drug

Role in the sentence - dig and drug

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dig is anonomatopoeia and druganoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68985, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dig is recorded at frequency rank #39,253, classified as anonomatopoeia. drug is at rank #29,732, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɹʌɡ\.

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 68985, this pair ranks #56,937 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dig vs drug

Shared letters: dg. Private to "dig": i. Private to "drug": ru.

"dig" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "drug" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drug ← ddrug · drgu · drrug · drugg · durg · rdug

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dig" and "drug" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dig" is an onomatopoeia and "drug" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dig" vs "drug" - which ranks higher?
"drug" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,732 in our French list, against #39,253 for "dig". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "dig" vs "drug" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dig" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drug" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #56,937 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dig" and "drug" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs dig". 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 #56,937 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