dracvsducWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“drac” and “duc” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,472
“drac” frequency rank
#2,118
“duc” frequency rank
37590
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drac duc
Definition Esprit malin ou animal fabuleux maléfique. Titre qui était le plus élevé parmi l’ancienne noblesse de France et de quelques autres États.

Where the eye mixes drac and duc

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
drac
3 ch
duc

Visual trap between drac and duc

A purely visual mix-up. drac (\dʁak\) and duc (\dyk\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37590, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drac is recorded at frequency rank #35,472, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʁak\. duc is at rank #2,118, 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 37590, this pair ranks #261,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drac vs duc

Shared letters: cd. Private to "drac": ar. Private to "duc": u.

"drac" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "duc" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dracdarc · ddrac · dracc · drca · drrac · rdac

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "drac" and "duc" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\dʁak\ versus \dyk\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "drac" vs "duc" - which ranks higher?
"duc" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,118 in our French list, against #35,472 for "drac". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drac" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duc" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #261,427 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drac" and "duc" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drac vs dray". 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 #261,427 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