drug vs dus, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#29,732
“drug” frequency rank: #9,817
“dus” frequency rank: 39549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	drug	dus
Definition	Médicament, drogue.	Masculin pluriel de dû.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set drug and dus apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

4 ch

drug

3 ch

dus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drug is \dɹʌɡ\ while dus is \dy\. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39549, 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\. dus is at rank #9,817, tagged as anadj, 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 39549, this pair ranks #247,143 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drug vs dus

Shared letters: du. Private to "drug": gr. Private to "dus": s.

"drug" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "dus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

drug ← ddrug · drgu · drrug · drugg · durg · rdug

Frequency comparison

drug#29,732

dus#9,817

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "drug" and "dus" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drug" is a noun and "dus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "drug" or "dus"?

"dus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,817 in our French list, against #29,732 for "drug". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering drug vs dus

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “drug”; for an adjective, it's “dus”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “drug” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable