break vs breath, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“break” is a verb and “breath” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,619
“break” frequency rank: #49,533
“breath” frequency rank: 61152
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	break	breath
Definition	brechen; kaputt gehen	Atem

Letter map: break vs breath

Shared letters muted; letters that set break and breath apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch

break

6 ch

breath

Role in the sentence - break and breath

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: break is averb and breathanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61152, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

break is recorded at frequency rank #11,619, classified as averb, pronounced [breɪk]. breath is at rank #49,533, 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 61152, this pair ranks #760,424 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of break vs breath

Shared letters: aber. Private to "break": k. Private to "breath": ht.

"break" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "breath" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

break ← bbreak · berak · braek · breakk · breka · brreak · rbeak
breath ← bbreath · berath · braeth · breaht · breathh · breatth · bretah · brreath

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "break" and "breath" mean the same thing in a sentence?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "break" is a verb and "breath" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

In ordinary German text, does "break" or "breath" show up more?

"break" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,619 in our German list, against #49,533 for "breath". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "break" and "breath".

Full dictionary entry for "break" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "breath" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #760,424 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"break" and "breath" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "breath 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 #760,424 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.