collectionvsofWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: collection is a noun, of is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“collection” is a noun and “of” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,591
“collection” frequency rank
#324
“of” frequency rank
15915
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature collection of
Definition Sammlung von aufbewahrten, gezielt ausgewählten Gegenständen von

Letter map: collection vs of

Shared letters muted; letters that set collection and of apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

10 ch
collection
2 ch
of

Grammar separator: collection vs of

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: collection is anoun and ofapreposition. On the page they differ by 8 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15915, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

collection is recorded at frequency rank #15,591, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. of is at rank #324, tagged as aprep, 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 15915, this pair ranks #1,940,115 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of collection vs of

Shared letters: o. Private to "collection": ceilnt. Private to "of": f.

"collection" · 10 letters · shape CVCCVCCVVC  ·  "of" · 2 letters · shape VC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • collectionccollection · clolection · colection · colelction · collcetion · collecction · colleciton · collectino

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "collection" and "of" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "collection" is a noun and "of" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "collection" or "of" show up more?
"of" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #324 in our German list, against #15,591 for "collection". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "collection" and "of". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "collection" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "of" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,940,115 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "collection" and "of" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "collection 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 #1,940,115 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