douésvsducsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#14,248
“doués” frequency rank
#14,017
“ducs” frequency rank
28265
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature doués ducs
Definition Masculin pluriel de doué. Pluriel de duc.

Where the eye mixes doués and ducs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
doués
4 ch
ducs

Visual trap between doués and ducs

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: doués is \dwe\ while ducs is \dyk\. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28265, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

doués is recorded at frequency rank #14,248, classified as anadj, pronounced \dwe\. 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 28265, this pair ranks #323,903 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of doués vs ducs

Shared letters: dsu. Private to "doués": . Private to "ducs": c.

"doués" · 5 letters · shape CVVVC  ·  "ducs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ducsdcus · dducs · duccs · ducss · dusc · udcs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "doués" for "ducs" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "doués" is an adjective and "ducs" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "doués" or "ducs"?
"ducs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,017 in our French list, against #14,248 for "doués". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "doués" 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 #323,903 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "doués" 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 #323,903 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