denvsdonaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: den is a unknown, dona is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“den” is an unknown and “dona” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10
“den” frequency rank
#44,532
“dona” frequency rank
44542
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature den dona
Definition Akkusativ Singular Maskulinum des bestimmten Artikels der Nominativ Plural des Substantivs donum „Gabe, Geschenk“

Letter map: den vs dona

Shared letters muted; letters that set den and dona apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
den
4 ch
dona

Grammar separator: den vs dona

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: den is anunknown and donaanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44542, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

den is recorded at frequency rank #10, classified as anunknown, pronounced [deːn]. dona is at rank #44,532, 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 44542, this pair ranks #1,382,832 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of den vs dona

Shared letters: dn. Private to "den": e. Private to "dona": ao.

"den" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "dona" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • donaddona · dnoa · doan · odna

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "den" and "dona" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "den" is an unknown and "dona" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "den" vs "dona" - which ranks higher?
"den" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10 in our German list, against #44,532 for "dona". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "den" and "dona".

  • Full dictionary entry for "den" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dona" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,382,832 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "den" and "dona" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dona 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 #1,382,832 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