domvsdunWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“dom” and “dun” are a confusable Portuguese pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,921
“dom” frequency rank
#45,320
“dun” frequency rank
47241
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dom dun
Definition casa (construção que serve de moradia) penugem imatura em pássaros jovens

Where the eye mixes dom and dun

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence. dom and dun follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

3 ch
dom
3 ch
dun

Why the eye confuses dom with dun

A purely visual mix-up. dom (/dɔm/) and dun (/duːn/, [d̥uːˀn]) 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 47241, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dom is recorded at frequency rank #1,921, classified as anoun, pronounced /dɔm/. dun is at rank #45,320, tagged as anoun, pronounced /duːn/, [d̥uːˀn].

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 47241, this pair ranks #18,025 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of dom vs dun

Shared letters: d. Private to "dom": mo. Private to "dun": nu.

"dom" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dun" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dom" and "dun" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently (/dɔm/ versus /duːn/, [d̥uːˀn]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary Portuguese text, does "dom" or "dun" show up more?
"dom" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,921 in our Portuguese list, against #45,320 for "dun". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "dom" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dun" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,025 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dom" and "dun" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs dun". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #18,025 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list