brothervsbrothersWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#12,253
“brother” frequency rank
#15,849
“brothers” frequency rank
28102
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature brother brothers
Definition Bruder, männliches Geschwisterkind Plural des Substantivs brother

Letter map: brother vs brothers

Shared letters muted; letters that set brother and brothers apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. brother runs 7 letters (CCVCCVC) against brothers's 8 (CCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
brother
8 ch
brothers

Spelling & dictionary notes on brother vs brothers

brother and brothers 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 1 extra letter(s) - “brother” sits inside “brothers”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

brother is recorded at frequency rank #12,253, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈbɹʌðə]. brothers is at rank #15,849, 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 28102, this pair ranks #1,790,532 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of brother vs brothers

Shared letters: behort. Private to "brother": -. Private to "brothers": s.

"brother" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC  ·  "brothers" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • brother ← bbrother · borther · brohter · brotehr · brotherr · brothher · brothre · brotther
  • brothers ← bbrothers · borthers · brohters · brotehrs · brotherrs · brotherss · brothesr · brothhers

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "brother" and "brothers" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “brother” sits inside “brothers”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "brother" vs "brothers" - which ranks higher?
"brother" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,253 in our German list, against #15,849 for "brothers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "brother" and "brothers". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "brother" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "brothers" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,790,532 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "brother" and "brothers" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "brothers 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 #1,790,532 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