aravsarmyWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“ara” and “army” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#35,062
“ara” frequency rank
#11,593
“army” frequency rank
46655
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ara army
Definition Ara Heer

Where the eye mixes ara and army

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ara
4 ch
army

Why the eye confuses ara with army

A purely visual mix-up. ara ([aʁa]) and army ([ˈɑːmɪ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46655, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ara is recorded at frequency rank #35,062, classified as anoun, pronounced [aʁa]. army is at rank #11,593, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɑːmɪ].

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 46655, this pair ranks #1,311,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ara vs army

Shared letters: ar. Private to "ara": -. Private to "army": my.

"ara" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "army" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • armyarmmy · armyy · arrmy · arym · ramy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ara" and "army" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([aʁa] versus [ˈɑːmɪ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "ara" or "army" show up more?
"army" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,593 in our German list, against #35,062 for "ara". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "ara" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "army" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,311,673 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ara" and "army" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ara vs AUD". 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 #1,311,673 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