Which to use
“du” is an article and “dust” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17
- “du” frequency rank
- #48,457
- “dust” frequency rank
- 48474
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | du | dust |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable. | Poussière. |
Where the eye mixes du and dust
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses du with dust
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: du is \dy\ while dust is \ˈdʌst\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “du” sits inside “dust”, and the parts of speech differ too (article vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48474, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
du is recorded at frequency rank #17, classified as anarticle, pronounced \dy\. dust is at rank #48,457, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈdʌst\.
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 48474, this pair ranks #178,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of du vs dust
Shared letters: du. Private to "du": -. Private to "dust": st.
"du" · 2 letters · shape CV · "dust" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- dust ← ddust · dsut · dusst · dustt · duts · udst
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "du" and "dust" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "du" vs "dust" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "du" and "dust" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "du" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "dust" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #178,608 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "du" and "dust" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DDT vs dust". 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 #178,608 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.