davonvsDiakonWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: davon is a adverb, Diakon is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“davon” is an adverb and “Diakon” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#241
“davon” frequency rank
#27,680
“Diakon” frequency rank
27921
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature davon Diakon
Definition Bezugnahme auf einen bestimmten Ort; Entfernung ab da oder Ablösung, Trennung, Befreiung von dort Person, die ein geistliches Amt (unterhalb des Priesters) innerhalb der (orthodoxen, anglikanischen, katholischen) Kirche ausübt

Where the eye mixes davon and Diakon

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. davon runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against Diakon's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
davon
6 ch
Diakon

Visual trap between davon and Diakon

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: davon is [daˈfɔn] while Diakon is [diaˈkoːn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27921, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

davon is recorded at frequency rank #241, classified as anadv, pronounced [daˈfɔn]. Diakon is at rank #27,680, tagged as anoun, pronounced [diaˈkoːn].

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 27921, this pair ranks #1,793,633 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of davon vs Diakon

Shared letters: adno. Private to "davon": v. Private to "Diakon": ik.

"davon" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Diakon" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • davon ← advon · daovn · davno · davonn · davvon · ddavon · dvaon
  • Diakon ← daikon · ddiakon · diakkon · diakno · diakonn · diaokn · dikaon · idakon

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "davon" and "Diakon" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "davon" is an adverb and "Diakon" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "davon" or "Diakon" show up more?
"davon" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #241 in our German list, against #27,680 for "Diakon". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "davon" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Diakon" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,793,633 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "davon" and "Diakon" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Diakon vs Disko". 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 #1,793,633 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