doisvsducsTell them apart

Quick tell: dois is a verb, ducs is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dois” is a verb and “ducs” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#707
“dois” frequency rank
#14,017
“ducs” frequency rank
14724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dois ducs
Definition Première personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de devoir. Pluriel de duc.

Where the eye mixes dois and ducs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. dois (CVVC) and ducs (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
dois
4 ch
ducs

Why the eye confuses dois with ducs

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dois is \dwa\ while ducs is \dyk\. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dois is recorded at frequency rank #707, classified as averb, pronounced \dwa\. ducs is at rank #14,017, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dyk\.

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 14724, this pair ranks #395,462 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dois vs ducs

Shared letters: ds. Private to "dois": io. Private to "ducs": cu.

"dois" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "ducs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dois ← ddois · doiss · dosi · odis
  • ducs ← dcus · dducs · duccs · ducss · dusc · udcs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dois" for "ducs" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dois" is a verb and "ducs" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dois" vs "ducs" - which ranks higher?
"dois" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #707 in our French list, against #14,017 for "ducs". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dois" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ducs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #395,462 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dois" and "ducs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs ducs". 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 #395,462 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