BotevsbothWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Bote is a noun, both is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Bote” is a noun and “both” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,327
“Bote” frequency rank
#28,111
“both” frequency rank
41438
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Bote both
Definition Person, die etwas überbringt, zum Beispiel eine Nachricht, Laufbursche einer Firma beide

Letter map: Bote vs both

Shared letters muted; letters that set Bote and both apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
Bote
4 ch
both

Part-of-speech tell for Bote / both

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Bote is anoun and bothanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “Bote” becomes h in “both”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41438, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Bote is recorded at frequency rank #13,327, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈboːtə]. both is at rank #28,111, tagged as anadj, 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 41438, this pair ranks #1,479,416 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Bote vs both

Shared letters: bot. Private to "Bote": e. Private to "both": h.

"Bote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "both" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Botebbote · boet · botte · btoe · obte
  • bothbboth · boht · bothh · botth · btoh · obth

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Bote" and "both" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Bote" is a noun and "both" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Bote" or "both" show up more?
"Bote" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,327 in our German list, against #28,111 for "both". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Bote" vs "both" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Bote" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "both" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,479,416 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Bote" and "both" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "both 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 #1,479,416 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