duckvsdurWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: duck is a noun, dur is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“duck” is a noun and “dur” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,624
“duck” frequency rank
#940
“dur” frequency rank
26564
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature duck dur
Definition Toile épaisse et résistante utilisée pour des bâches, de tentes, des voiles, etc. Ferme ; difficile à pénétrer ou à entamer.

Letter map: duck vs dur

Shared letters muted; letters that set duck and dur apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
duck
3 ch
dur

Role in the sentence - duck and dur

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: duck is anoun and duranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26564, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

duck is recorded at frequency rank #25,624, classified as anoun. 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 26564, this pair ranks #334,223 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of duck vs dur

Shared letters: du. Private to "duck": ck. Private to "dur": r.

"duck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • duckdcuk · dduck · ducck · duckk · dukc · udck

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "duck" and "dur" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "duck" is a noun and "dur" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "duck" vs "dur" - which ranks higher?
"dur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #940 in our French list, against #25,624 for "duck". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "duck" and "dur".

  • Full dictionary entry for "duck" 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 #334,223 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "duck" and "dur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drunk vs duck". 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 #334,223 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