captainvscourtWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,738
“captain” frequency rank
#14,536
“court” frequency rank
22274
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature captain court
Definition ein Schiff führen, ein Schiff befehligen der Hof, der Hinterhof, der Schulhof, der Spielplatz

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set captain and court apart are highlighted. They share 2 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

7 ch
captain
5 ch
court

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: captain is averb and courtanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22274, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

captain is recorded at frequency rank #7,738, classified as averb, pronounced […]. court is at rank #14,536, 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 22274, this pair ranks #1,876,192 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of captain vs court

Shared letters: ct. Private to "captain": ainp. Private to "court": oru.

"captain" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC  ·  "court" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • captainacptain · capatin · capptain · captainn · captani · captian · capttain · catpain
  • courtccourt · corut · courrt · courtt · coutr · cuort · ocurt

Frequency comparison

captain#7,738
court#14,536

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "captain" and "court" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "captain" is a verb and "court" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "captain" or "court"?
"captain" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,738 in our German list, against #14,536 for "court". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering captain vs court

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

  • Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “captain”; for a noun, it's “court”.
  • See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “captain” entry
  • Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list