durantvsdurcitConfusable pair

Quick tell: durant is a preposition, durcit is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“durant” is a preposition and “durcit” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#670
“durant” frequency rank
#34,066
“durcit” frequency rank
34736
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature durant durcit
Definition Tout au long de. Troisième personne du singulier de l’indicatif présent de durcir.

Where the eye mixes durant and durcit

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. durant (CVCVCC) and durcit (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
durant
6 ch
durcit

Look-alike desk: durant vs durcit

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: durant is \dy.ʁɑ̃\ while durcit is \dyʁ.si\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34736, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

durant is recorded at frequency rank #670, classified as aprep, pronounced \dy.ʁɑ̃\. durcit is at rank #34,066, tagged as averb, pronounced \dyʁ.si\.

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 34736, this pair ranks #281,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of durant vs durcit

Shared letters: drtu. Private to "durant": an. Private to "durcit": ci.

"durant" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "durcit" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • durant ← ddurant · druant · duarnt · durannt · durantt · duratn · durnat · durrant
  • durcit ← ddurcit · drucit · ducrit · durccit · durcitt · durcti · durict · durrcit

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "durant" for "durcit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "durant" is a preposition and "durcit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "durant" or "durcit"?
"durant" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #670 in our French list, against #34,066 for "durcit". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "durant" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "durcit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #281,758 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "durant" and "durcit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "durci vs durcit". 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 #281,758 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