drunkvsdunWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#49,033
“drunk” frequency rank
#16,344
“dun” frequency rank
65377
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drunk dun
Definition Ivre, saoul. Marron grisâtre #DAC8AE.

Where the eye mixes drunk and dun

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

5 ch
drunk
3 ch
dun

Visual trap between drunk and dun

A purely visual mix-up. drunk (\drʌŋk\) and dun (\dʌn\) 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65377, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drunk is recorded at frequency rank #49,033, classified as anadj, pronounced \drʌŋk\. dun is at rank #16,344, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dʌn\.

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 65377, this pair ranks #72,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of drunk vs dun

Shared letters: dnu. Private to "drunk": kr. Private to "dun": -.

"drunk" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "dun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drunkddrunk · drnuk · drrunk · drukn · drunkk · drunnk · durnk · rdunk

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "drunk" and "dun" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\drʌŋk\ versus \dʌn\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "drunk" or "dun"?
"dun" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,344 in our French list, against #49,033 for "drunk". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drunk" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,659 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drunk" and "dun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drum vs drunk". 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 #72,659 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