Which to use
“archives” is a verb and “by” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #32,914
- “archives” frequency rank
- #1,627
- “by” frequency rank
- 34541
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | archives | by |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs archive | Stadt |
Letter map: archives vs by
Shared letters muted; letters that set archives and by apart highlighted. No shared letter run.
Role in the sentence - archives and by
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: archives is averb and byanoun. On the page they differ by 6 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34541, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
archives is recorded at frequency rank #32,914, classified as averb, pronounced […]. by is at rank #1,627, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].
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 34541, this pair ranks #1,660,959 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of archives vs by
Shared letters: none. Private to "archives": acehirsv. Private to "by": by.
"archives" · 8 letters · shape VCCCVCVC · "by" · 2 letters · shape CV
Known mistypes of this pair
- archives ← acrhives · arcchives · archhives · archievs · archivess · archivse · archivves · archvies
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "archives" for "by" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "archives" or "by" show up more?
After this comparison
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "archives" and "by".
- Full dictionary entry for "archives" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "by" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,660,959 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "archives" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "archives vs puzzles". 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 #1,660,959 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.