byvspuzzlesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,627
“by” frequency rank
#49,986
“puzzles” frequency rank
51613
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature by puzzles
Definition Stadt 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs puzzle

Letter map: by vs puzzles

Shared letters muted; letters that set by and puzzles apart highlighted. No shared letter run.

2 ch
by
7 ch
puzzles

Grammar separator: by vs puzzles

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: by is anoun and puzzlesaverb. On the page they differ by 5 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

by is recorded at frequency rank #1,627, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. puzzles is at rank #49,986, 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 51613, this pair ranks #1,128,813 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of by vs puzzles

Shared letters: none. Private to "by": by. Private to "puzzles": elpsuz.

"by" · 2 letters · shape CV  ·  "puzzles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • puzzlesppuzzles · puzles · puzlzes · puzzels · puzzless · puzzlles · puzzlse · pzuzles

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "by" for "puzzles" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "by" is a noun and "puzzles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "by" or "puzzles" show up more?
"by" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,627 in our German list, against #49,986 for "puzzles". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "by" and "puzzles".

  • Full dictionary entry for "by" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "puzzles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,128,813 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "by" and "puzzles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "purpose 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 #1,128,813 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