brandsvsbyWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#32,968
“brands” frequency rank
#1,627
“by” frequency rank
34595
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brands by
Definition Plural des Substantivs brand Stadt

Letter map: brands vs by

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

6 ch
brands
2 ch
by

Corpus notes: brands and by

brands 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 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34595, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brands is recorded at frequency rank #32,968, 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 34595, this pair ranks #1,659,680 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of brands vs by

Shared letters: b. Private to "brands": adnrs. Private to "by": y.

"brands" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC  ·  "by" · 2 letters · shape CV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brandsbarnds · bbrands · bradns · brandds · brandss · brannds · bransd · brnads

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "brands" and "by" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 4 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: "brands" 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 #32,968 for "brands". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "brands" and "by". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brands" 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 #1,659,680 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brands" and "by" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brands 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 #1,659,680 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