DockvsdortWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Dock is a noun, dort is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Dock” is a noun and “dort” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,364
“Dock” frequency rank
#153
“dort” frequency rank
26517
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Dock dort
Definition Becken oder schwimmender Hohlkörper aus Stahl zur Trockenlegung von Schiffen, an denen Außenarbeiten erforderlich sind Hinweis auf einen Ort, stärker als da

Where the eye mixes Dock and dort

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

4 ch
Dock
4 ch
dort

Why the eye confuses Dock with dort

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Dock is [dɔk] while dort is [dɔʁt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 26517, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Dock is recorded at frequency rank #26,364, classified as anoun, pronounced [dɔk]. dort is at rank #153, tagged as anadv, pronounced [dɔʁt].

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 26517, this pair ranks #1,816,836 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Dock vs dort

Shared letters: do. Private to "Dock": ck. Private to "dort": rt.

"Dock" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "dort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Dockdcok · ddock · docck · dockk · dokc · odck
  • dortddort · dorrt · dortt · dotr · drot · odrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Dock" for "dort" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Dock" is a noun and "dort" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Dock" or "dort" show up more?
"dort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #153 in our German list, against #26,364 for "Dock". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Dock" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,816,836 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Dock" and "dort" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dock vs Docks". 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 #1,816,836 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