diezvsdreiWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“diez” and “drei” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#30,000
“diez” frequency rank
#175
“drei” frequency rank
30175
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature diez drei
Definition zehn: Kardinalzahl zwischen 9 und 11 die Kardinalzahl zwischen zwei und vier

Where the eye mixes diez and drei

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
diez
4 ch
drei

Visual trap between diez and drei

A purely visual mix-up. diez ([djeθ]) and drei ([dʁaɪ̯]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30175, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

diez is recorded at frequency rank #30,000, classified as anum, pronounced [djeθ]. drei is at rank #175, tagged as anum, pronounced [dʁaɪ̯].

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 30175, this pair ranks #1,752,957 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of diez vs drei

Shared letters: dei. Private to "diez": z. Private to "drei": r.

"diez" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "drei" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • diezddiez · deiz · diezz · dize · idez
  • dreiddrei · deri · drie · drrei · rdei

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "diez" for "drei" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([djeθ] versus [dʁaɪ̯]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "diez" vs "drei" - which ranks higher?
"drei" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #175 in our German list, against #30,000 for "diez". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "diez" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drei" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,752,957 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "diez" and "drei" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diet vs diez". 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 #1,752,957 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