delvsdellaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: del is a abbrev, della is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“del” is an abbrev and “della” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#3,719
“del” frequency rank
#11,845
“della” frequency rank
15564
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature del della
Definition Bezeichnung für ∂, ein Symbol für die partielle Ableitung – es ist nicht mit dem kleinen Delta δ zu verwechseln Verschmelzung der Präposition di mit dem bestimmten Artikel la

Letter map: del vs della

Shared letters muted; letters that set del and della apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
del
5 ch
della

Part-of-speech tell for del / della

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: del is anabbrev and dellaapreposition. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “del” sits inside “della”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15564, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

del is recorded at frequency rank #3,719, classified as anabbrev. della is at rank #11,845, tagged as aprep, pronounced [ˈdella].

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 15564, this pair ranks #1,942,862 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of del vs della

Shared letters: del. Private to "del": -. Private to "della": a.

"del" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "della" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • delladdella · delal · dlela · edlla

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "del" for "della" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "del" is an abbrev and "della" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "del" or "della" show up more?
"del" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,719 in our German list, against #11,845 for "della". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "del" vs "della" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "del" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "della" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,942,862 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "del" and "della" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "degli vs della". 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 #1,942,862 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