duvsduroTell them apart

Quick tell: du is a pronoun, duro is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“du” is a pronoun and “duro” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#5,187
“du” frequency rank
#3,070
“duro” frequency rank
8257
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature du duro
Definition você, tu difícil de quebrar ou de desfazer

Letter map: du vs duro

Shared letters muted; letters that set du and duro apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch
du
4 ch
duro

Grammar separator: du vs duro

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: du is apronoun and duroanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “du” sits inside “duro”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8257, 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 ?). duro is at rank #3,070, tagged as anadj.

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 8257, this pair ranks #65,582 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of du vs duro

Shared letters: du. Private to "du": -. Private to "duro": or.

"du" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "duro" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • durodduro · druo · duor · durro · udro

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "du" and "duro" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "du" is a pronoun and "duro" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "du" or "duro"?
"duro" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,070 in our Portuguese list, against #5,187 for "du". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "du" vs "duro" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "du" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duro" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #65,582 of 75,631 scored Portuguese confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "du" and "duro" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dat vs du". 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 #65,582 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