departmentvsopenConfusable pair

Quick tell: department is a noun, open is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“department” is a noun and “open” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#15,600
“department” frequency rank
#2,607
“open” frequency rank
18207
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature department open
Definition Fachbereich etwas ist nicht geschlossen

Letter map: department vs open

Shared letters muted; letters that set department and open apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

10 ch
department
4 ch
open

Grammar separator: department vs open

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: department is anoun and openanadjective. On the page they differ by 6 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 18207, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

department is recorded at frequency rank #15,600, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. open is at rank #2,607, tagged as anadj, 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 18207, this pair ranks #1,920,414 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of department vs open

Shared letters: enp. Private to "department": admrt. Private to "open": o.

"department" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCCCVCC  ·  "open" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • departmentddepartment · deaprtment · deparmtent · deparrtment · departemnt · departmennt · departmentt · departmetn
  • openoepn · openn · opne · oppen · poen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "department" and "open" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "department" is a noun and "open" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "department" or "open"?
"open" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,607 in our German list, against #15,600 for "department". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "department" vs "open" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "department" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "open" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,920,414 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "department" and "open" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "department 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 #1,920,414 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