blackoutvsbyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#26,334
“blackout” frequency rank
#1,627
“by” frequency rank
27961
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blackout by
Definition Blackout, zeitlich begrenzter Erinnerungsverlust Stadt

Letter map: blackout vs by

Shared letters muted; letters that set blackout and by apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

8 ch
blackout
2 ch
by

Spelling & dictionary notes on blackout vs by

blackout and by are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 6 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27961, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blackout is recorded at frequency rank #26,334, classified as anoun, 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 27961, this pair ranks #1,792,925 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of blackout vs by

Shared letters: b. Private to "blackout": acklotu. Private to "by": y.

"blackout" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVVC  ·  "by" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blackoutbalckout · bblackout · blacckout · blackkout · blackotu · blackoutt · blackuot · blacokut

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "blackout" and "by" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 6 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "blackout" vs "by" - which ranks higher?
"by" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,627 in our German list, against #26,334 for "blackout". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "blackout" and "by".

  • Full dictionary entry for "blackout" 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 #1,792,925 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blackout" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blackout 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 #1,792,925 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