dichtvsduchWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: dicht is a adjective, duch is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#2,949
“dicht” frequency rank
#48,829
“duch” frequency rank
51778
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dicht duch
Definition eng, nahe beieinanderliegend, undurchdringlich gedankliche, nicht körperliche Eigenschaften des Menschen: Geist

Where the eye mixes dicht and duch

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. dicht runs 5 letters (CVCCC) against duch's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
dicht
4 ch
duch

Visual trap between dicht and duch

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dicht is [dɪçt] while duch is [dʊx]. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51778, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dicht is recorded at frequency rank #2,949, classified as anadj, pronounced [dɪçt]. duch is at rank #48,829, tagged as anoun, pronounced [dʊx].

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 51778, this pair ranks #1,122,393 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of dicht vs duch

Shared letters: cdh. Private to "dicht": it. Private to "duch": u.

"dicht" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "duch" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • dicht ← dciht · ddicht · diccht · dichht · dichtt · dicth · dihct · idcht
  • duch ← dcuh · dduch · ducch · duchh · duhc · udch

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dicht" and "duch" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dicht" is an adjective and "duch" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "dicht" or "duch"?
"dicht" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,949 in our German list, against #48,829 for "duch". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "dicht" and "duch" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dicht" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "duch" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,122,393 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dicht" and "duch" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "duch vs dusch". 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 #1,122,393 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