ducksvsdusConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#34,503
“ducks” frequency rank
#9,817
“dus” frequency rank
44320
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ducks dus
Definition Pluriel de duck. Masculin pluriel de dû.

Where the eye mixes ducks and dus

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

5 ch
ducks
3 ch
dus

Look-alike desk: ducks vs dus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ducks is \ˈdʌks\ while dus is \dy\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44320, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ducks is recorded at frequency rank #34,503, classified as anoun, pronounced \ˈdʌks\. dus is at rank #9,817, tagged as anadj, pronounced \dy\.

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 44320, this pair ranks #211,325 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ducks vs dus

Shared letters: dsu. Private to "ducks": ck. Private to "dus": -.

"ducks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "dus" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ducksdcuks · dducks · duccks · duckks · duckss · ducsk · dukcs · udcks

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ducks" and "dus" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ducks" is a noun and "dus" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "ducks" or "dus" show up more?
"dus" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,817 in our French list, against #34,503 for "ducks". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "ducks" and "dus" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ducks" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #211,325 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ducks" and "dus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ducks vs ducon". 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 #211,325 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