awayvsfoodWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: away is a adverb, food is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“away” is an adverb and “food” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,565
“away” frequency rank
#7,045
“food” frequency rank
22610
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature away food
Definition weg, fort, abwesend jede Substanz die von Menschen, Pflanzen oder Tieren aufgenommen wird, um das Überleben und das Wachstum zu ermöglichen, Nahrung

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set away and food apart are highlighted. They share no common letter run, the confusion here is by sound, not by sight.

4 ch
away
4 ch
food

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: away is anadverb and foodanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22610, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

away is recorded at frequency rank #15,565, classified as anadv, pronounced […]. food is at rank #7,045, 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 22610, this pair ranks #1,872,050 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of away vs food

Shared letters: none. Private to "away": awy. Private to "food": dfo.

"away" · 4 letters · shape VCVV  ·  "food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • awayaawy · awayy · awway · awya · waay
  • foodffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod

Frequency comparison

away#15,565
food#7,045

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "away" and "food" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "away" is an adverb and "food" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "away" or "food"?
"food" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,045 in our German list, against #15,565 for "away". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering away vs food

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need an adverb, it's “away”; for a noun, it's “food”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “away” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list