Which to use
“death” is a noun and “deute” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,207
- “death” frequency rank
- #37,447
- “deute” frequency rank
- 48654
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | death | deute |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Tod, Exitus | 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs deuten |
Where the eye mixes death and deute
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses death with deute
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: death is [dɛθ] while deute is [ˈdɔɪ̯tə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48654, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
death is recorded at frequency rank #11,207, classified as anoun, pronounced [dɛθ]. deute is at rank #37,447, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈdɔɪ̯tə].
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 48654, this pair ranks #1,240,559 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of death vs deute
Shared letters: det. Private to "death": ah. Private to "deute": u.
"death" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC · "deute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "death" for "deute" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "death" or "deute" show up more?
Useful next steps
Eye-level mix-up between "death" and "deute" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "death" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "deute" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,240,559 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "death" and "deute" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "deute vs devote". 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 #1,240,559 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.