Which to use
“duff” and “duty” are a confusable French pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #34,065
- “duff” frequency rank
- #20,990
- “duty” frequency rank
- 55055
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | duff | duty |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Pâte à gâteau. | Devoir. |
Where the eye mixes duff and duty
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between duff and duty
A purely visual mix-up. duff (\dʌf\) and duty (\ˈdju.ti\) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55055, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
duff is recorded at frequency rank #34,065, classified as anoun, pronounced \dʌf\. duty is at rank #20,990, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈdju.ti\.
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 55055, this pair ranks #129,949 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of duff vs duty
Shared letters: du. Private to "duff": f. Private to "duty": ty.
"duff" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "duty" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "duff" and "duty" be used interchangeably?
Frequency check: "duff" vs "duty" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "duff" and "duty" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "duff" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "duty" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #129,949 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "duff" and "duty" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duff 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 #129,949 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.