Which to use
“du” is an article and “dz” is a character - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #17
- “du” frequency rank
- #47,847
- “dz” frequency rank
- 47864
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | du | dz |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Une quantité indéfinie de. Note d’usage : Utilisé avec un nom indénombrable. | Lettre de l’alphabet hongrois entre le d et le dzs, utilisée pour \dz\. |
Where the eye mixes du and dz
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: du is \dy\ while dz is \dzeː\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - u in “du” becomes z in “dz”, and the parts of speech differ too (article vs character), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
du is recorded at frequency rank #17, classified as anarticle, pronounced \dy\. dz is at rank #47,847, tagged as acharacter, pronounced \dzeː\.
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 47864, this pair ranks #183,547 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of du vs dz
Shared letters: d. Private to "du": u. Private to "dz": z.
"du" · 2 letters · shape CV · "dz" · 2 letters · shape CC