breathvsetWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#49,533
“breath” frequency rank
#1,447
“et” frequency rank
50980
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature breath et
Definition Atem Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs eat

Letter map: breath vs et

Shared letters muted; letters that set breath and et apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

6 ch
breath
2 ch
et

Role in the sentence - breath and et

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: breath is anoun and etaverb. On the page they differ by 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50980, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

breath is recorded at frequency rank #49,533, classified as anoun, 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 50980, this pair ranks #1,153,096 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of breath vs et

Shared letters: et. Private to "breath": abhr. Private to "et": -.

"breath" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "et" · 2 letters · shape VC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • breathbbreath · berath · braeth · breaht · breathh · breatth · bretah · brreath

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "breath" for "et" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "breath" is a noun and "et" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "breath" or "et"?
"et" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,447 in our German list, against #49,533 for "breath". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "breath" 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 #1,153,096 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "breath" and "et" 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 #1,153,096 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