divvsdurTell them apart

Quick tell: div is a noun, dur is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“div” is a noun and “dur” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,407
“div” frequency rank
#940
“dur” frequency rank
28347
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature div dur
Definition Type de balise HTML servant à délimiter un bloc de texte d’une ou plusieurs lignes. Ferme ; difficile à pénétrer ou à entamer.

Where the eye mixes div and dur

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

3 ch
div
3 ch
dur

Visual trap between div and dur

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: div is \div\ while dur is \dyʁ\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

div is recorded at frequency rank #27,407, classified as anoun, pronounced \div\. dur is at rank #940, tagged as anadj, 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 28347, this pair ranks #323,400 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of div vs dur

Shared letters: d. Private to "div": iv. Private to "dur": ru.

"div" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "div" and "dur" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "div" is a noun and "dur" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "div" or "dur"?
"dur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #940 in our French list, against #27,407 for "div". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "div" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #323,400 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "div" and "dur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs div". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #323,400 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