breakingvstoreWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: breaking is a verb, tore is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#17,242
“breaking” frequency rank
#2,414
“tore” frequency rank
19656
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breaking tore
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs break Vulva

Letter map: breaking vs tore

Shared letters muted; letters that set breaking and tore apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

8 ch
breaking
4 ch
tore

Grammar separator: breaking vs tore

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: breaking is averb and toreanoun. On the page they differ by 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19656, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breaking is recorded at frequency rank #17,242, classified as averb, pronounced […]. tore is at rank #2,414, 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 19656, this pair ranks #1,906,022 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of breaking vs tore

Shared letters: er. Private to "breaking": abgikn. Private to "tore": ot.

"breaking" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC  ·  "tore" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breakingbbreaking · beraking · braeking · breaikng · breakign · breakingg · breakinng · breakking
  • toreotre · toer · troe · ttore

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "breaking" and "tore" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "breaking" is a verb and "tore" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "breaking" or "tore" show up more?
"tore" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,414 in our German list, against #17,242 for "breaking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "breaking" vs "tore" 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 "tore" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,906,022 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breaking" and "tore" 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 #1,906,022 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