drinvsdrittTell them apart

Quick tell: drin is a adverb, dritt is a num, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“drin” is an adverb and “dritt” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,126
“drin” frequency rank
#12,891
“dritt” frequency rank
14017
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drin dritt
Definition eine Ortsangabe ‚innerhalb von etwas‘ verstärkend mit mit einer Gruppe aus drei Individuen etwas machen

Where the eye mixes drin and dritt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
drin
5 ch
dritt

Why the eye confuses drin with dritt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drin is [dʁɪn] while dritt is [dʁɪt]. 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 (adverb vs num), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 14017, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drin is recorded at frequency rank #1,126, classified as anadv, pronounced [dʁɪn]. dritt is at rank #12,891, tagged as anum, pronounced [dʁɪt].

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 14017, this pair ranks #1,954,146 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of drin vs dritt

Shared letters: dir. Private to "drin": n. Private to "dritt": t.

"drin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "dritt" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drinddrin · dirn · drinn · drni · drrin · rdin
  • drittddritt · dirtt · drit · drritt · drtit · rditt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drin" for "dritt" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drin" is an adverb and "dritt" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "drin" or "dritt" show up more?
"drin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,126 in our German list, against #12,891 for "dritt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dritt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,954,146 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drin" and "dritt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diet vs dritt". 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 #1,954,146 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