undvsUTCWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: und is a conjunction, UTC is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“und” is a conjunction and “UTC” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,125
“und” frequency rank
#23,406
“UTC” frequency rank
30531
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature und UTC
Definition Et, concatène deux éléments dans une même relation. Temps universel coordonné.

Where the eye mixes und and UTC

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
und
3 ch
UTC

Why the eye confuses und with UTC

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: und is \ʊnt\ while UTC is \y.te.se\. 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 (conjunction vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30531, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

und is recorded at frequency rank #7,125, classified as aconj, pronounced \ʊnt\. UTC is at rank #23,406, tagged as aname, pronounced \y.te.se\.

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 30531, this pair ranks #309,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of und vs UTC

Shared letters: u. Private to "und": dn. Private to "UTC": ct.

"und" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "UTC" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "und" for "UTC" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "und" is a conjunction and "UTC" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "und" or "UTC" show up more?
"und" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,125 in our French list, against #23,406 for "UTC". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "und" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "UTC" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #309,675 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "und" and "UTC" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Ubu vs UTC". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #309,675 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