Which to use
“du” is a pronoun and “duck” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #5,187
- “du” frequency rank
- #23,302
- “duck” frequency rank
- 28489
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | du | duck |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | você, tu | pato |
Letter map: du vs duck
Shared letters muted; letters that set du and duck apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.
Part-of-speech tell for du / duck
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: du is apronoun and duckanoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “du” sits inside “duck”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28489, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
du is recorded at frequency rank #5,187, classified as apron, pronounced /du:/ ouvir^(fonte ?). duck is at rank #23,302, tagged as anoun.
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 28489, this pair ranks #40,321 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of du vs duck
Shared letters: du. Private to "du": -. Private to "duck": ck.
"du" · 2 letters · shape CV · "duck" · 4 letters · shape CVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
- duck ← dcuk · dduck · ducck · duckk · dukc · udck
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "du" for "duck" ever safe?
Frequency check: "du" vs "duck" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "du" and "duck".
- Full dictionary entry for "du" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "duck" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #40,321 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "du" and "duck" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dink vs duck". 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 #40,321 of 75,631 scored Portuguese pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.