Which to use
“drum” is an adverb and “dur” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #47,293
- “drum” frequency rank
- #940
- “dur” frequency rank
- 48233
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | drum | dur |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Contraction de darum. | Ferme ; difficile à pénétrer ou à entamer. |
Where the eye mixes drum and dur
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: drum vs dur
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drum is \dʀʊm\ while dur is \dyʁ\. 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 (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
drum is recorded at frequency rank #47,293, classified as anadv, pronounced \dʀʊm\. dur is at rank #940, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dyʁ\.
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 48233, this pair ranks #180,578 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of drum vs dur
Shared letters: dru. Private to "drum": m. Private to "dur": -.
"drum" · 4 letters · shape CCVC · "dur" · 3 letters · shape CVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- drum ← ddrum · drmu · drrum · drumm · durm · rdum
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "drum" and "dur" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "drum" or "dur"?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "drum" and "dur" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "drum" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #180,578 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "drum" and "dur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dray vs drum". 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 #180,578 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.