breakingvsetTell them apart

Which to use

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

#17,242
“breaking” frequency rank
#1,447
“et” frequency rank
18689
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breaking et
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs break Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs eat

Letter map: breaking vs et

Shared letters muted; letters that set breaking and et apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

8 ch
breaking
2 ch
et

Spelling & dictionary notes on breaking vs et

breaking and et 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 18689, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breaking is recorded at frequency rank #17,242, classified as averb, pronounced […]. et is at rank #1,447, tagged as averb, 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 18689, this pair ranks #1,915,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of breaking vs et

Shared letters: e. Private to "breaking": abgiknr. Private to "et": t.

"breaking" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC  ·  "et" · 2 letters · shape VC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breakingbbreaking · beraking · braeking · breaikng · breakign · breakingg · breakinng · breakking

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "breaking" for "et" ever safe?
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: "breaking" vs "et" - which ranks higher?
"et" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,447 in our German list, against #17,242 for "breaking". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "breaking" vs "et" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "breaking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "et" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,915,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breaking" and "et" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "breaking 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 #1,915,843 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