artsvsautTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#12,659
“arts” frequency rank
#20,843
“aut” frequency rank
33502
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arts aut
Definition Plural des Substantivs art einen Unterschied anzeigend; oder

Letter map: arts vs aut

Shared letters muted; letters that set arts and aut apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
arts
3 ch
aut

Role in the sentence - arts and aut

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: arts is anoun and autaconjunction. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33502, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arts is recorded at frequency rank #12,659, classified as anoun, pronounced [aː(ɹ)ts]. 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 33502, this pair ranks #1,684,583 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arts vs aut

Shared letters: at. Private to "arts": rs. Private to "aut": u.

"arts" · 4 letters · shape VCCC  ·  "aut" · 3 letters · shape VVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • artsarrts · artss · artts · atrs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arts" for "aut" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arts" is a noun and "aut" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "arts" or "aut" show up more?
"arts" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,659 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.

Useful next steps

You've compared "arts" and "aut". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arts" 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 #1,684,583 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arts" 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 #1,684,583 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