dubvsdureWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#27,777
“dub” frequency rank
#1,912
“dure” frequency rank
29689
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dub dure
Definition Genre musical, basé sur un remix mettant en évidence les sons de basse et le rythme. Femme pleine de dureté, insensible ou très sévère.

Where the eye mixes dub and dure

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
dub
4 ch
dure

Visual trap between dub and dure

A purely visual mix-up. dub (\dœb\) and dure (\dyʁ\) 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 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dub is recorded at frequency rank #27,777, classified as anoun, pronounced \dœb\. dure is at rank #1,912, tagged as anoun, 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 29689, this pair ranks #315,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dub vs dure

Shared letters: du. Private to "dub": b. Private to "dure": er.

"dub" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dure" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dureddure · drue · duer · durre · udre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dub" for "dure" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dœb\ versus \dyʁ\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary French text, does "dub" or "dure" show up more?
"dure" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,912 in our French list, against #27,777 for "dub". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dub" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dure" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #315,092 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dub" and "dure" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DCI vs dub". 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 #315,092 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