ducsvsduosTell them apart

Which to use

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

#14,017
“ducs” frequency rank
#25,286
“duos” frequency rank
39303
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ducs duos
Definition Pluriel de duc. Pluriel de duo.

Where the eye mixes ducs and duos

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

4 ch
ducs
4 ch
duos

Visual trap between ducs and duos

A purely visual mix-up. ducs (\dyk\) and duos (\dɥo\) 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 a single letter - c in “ducs” becomes o in “duos”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39303, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ducs is recorded at frequency rank #14,017, classified as anoun, pronounced \dyk\. duos is at rank #25,286, tagged as anoun, pronounced \dɥo\.

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 39303, this pair ranks #249,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ducs vs duos

Shared letters: dsu. Private to "ducs": c. Private to "duos": o.

"ducs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "duos" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ducsdcus · dducs · duccs · ducss · dusc · udcs
  • duosdduos · dous · duoss · duso · udos

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "ducs" for "duos" ever safe?
No. They are said differently (\dyk\ versus \dɥo\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "ducs" vs "duos" - which ranks higher?
"ducs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,017 in our French list, against #25,286 for "duos". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "ducs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duos" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #249,025 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ducs" and "duos" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duos 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 #249,025 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