dursvsdustWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#6,699
“durs” frequency rank
#48,457
“dust” frequency rank
55156
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature durs dust
Definition Le bagne. Poussière.

Where the eye mixes durs and dust

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. durs and dust follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
durs
4 ch
dust

Visual trap between durs and dust

A purely visual mix-up. durs (\dyʁ\) and dust (\ˈdʌst\) 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 55156, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

durs is recorded at frequency rank #6,699, classified as anoun, pronounced \dyʁ\. dust is at rank #48,457, tagged as anoun, pronounced \ˈdʌst\.

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 55156, this pair ranks #129,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of durs vs dust

Shared letters: dsu. Private to "durs": r. Private to "dust": t.

"durs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dust" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • durs ← ddurs · drus · durrs · durss · dusr · udrs
  • dust ← ddust · dsut · dusst · dustt · duts · udst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "durs" and "dust" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently (\dyʁ\ versus \ˈdʌst\) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "durs" vs "dust" - which ranks higher?
"durs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,699 in our French list, against #48,457 for "dust". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "durs" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dust" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #129,314 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "durs" and "dust" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "DDT 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 #129,314 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