Which to use
“drug” is a noun and “du” is an article - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #29,732
- “drug” frequency rank
- #17
- “du” frequency rank
- 29749
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drug | du |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Médicament, drogue. | Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable. |
Where the eye mixes drug and du
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. drug runs 4 letters (CCVC) against du's 2 (CV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between drug and du
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drug is \dɹʌɡ\ while du is \dy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs article), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29749, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drug is recorded at frequency rank #29,732, classified as anoun, pronounced \dɹʌɡ\. du is at rank #17, tagged as anarticle, pronounced \dy\.
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 29749, this pair ranks #314,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drug vs du
Shared letters: du. Private to "drug": gr. Private to "du": -.
"drug" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "du" · 2 letters · shape CV
Known mistypes of this pair
- drug ← ddrug · drgu · drrug · drugg · durg · rdug
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "drug" for "du" ever safe?
Which is more common, "drug" or "du"?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "drug" and "du" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drug" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #314,736 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drug" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dray vs drug". 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 #314,736 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.