aboutvsautTell them apart

Quick tell: about is a adverb, aut is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“about” is an adverb and “aut” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,001
“about” frequency rank
#20,843
“aut” frequency rank
27844
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature about aut
Definition an, etwa, gut, rund, ungefähr, zirka einen Unterschied anzeigend; oder

Letter map: about vs aut

Shared letters muted; letters that set about and aut apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
about
3 ch
aut

Grammar separator: about vs aut

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: about is anadverb and autaconjunction. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27844, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

about is recorded at frequency rank #7,001, classified as anadv, pronounced [əˈbaʊt]. aut is at rank #20,843, tagged as aconj.

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 27844, this pair ranks #1,794,911 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of about vs aut

Shared letters: atu. Private to "about": bo. Private to "aut": -.

"about" · 5 letters · shape VCVVC  ·  "aut" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • aboutabbout · abotu · aboutt · abuot · aobut · baout

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "about" for "aut" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "about" is an adverb and "aut" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "about" vs "aut" - which ranks higher?
"about" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,001 in our German list, against #20,843 for "aut". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "about" and "aut".

  • Full dictionary entry for "about" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "aut" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,794,911 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "about" and "aut" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "AUD vs aut". 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 #1,794,911 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list