drinnevsdritteConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#33,538
“drinne” frequency rank
#1,155
“dritte” frequency rank
34693
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drinne dritte
Definition im Inneren nach dem oder der zweiten kommend

Where the eye mixes drinne and dritte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. drinne and dritte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
drinne
6 ch
dritte

Look-alike desk: drinne vs dritte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drinne is [ˈdʁɪnə] while dritte is [ˈdʁɪtə]. 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 (adverb vs num), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34693, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drinne is recorded at frequency rank #33,538, classified as anadv, pronounced [ˈdʁɪnə]. dritte is at rank #1,155, tagged as anum, pronounced [ˈdʁɪtə].

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 34693, this pair ranks #1,657,527 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of drinne vs dritte

Shared letters: deir. Private to "drinne": n. Private to "dritte": t.

"drinne" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "dritte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drinne ← ddrinne · dirnne · drine · drnine · drrinne · rdinne
  • dritte ← ddritte · dirtte · drite · dritet · drritte · drtite · rditte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drinne" for "dritte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drinne" is an adverb and "dritte" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "drinne" or "dritte" show up more?
"dritte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,155 in our German list, against #33,538 for "drinne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drinne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dritte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,657,527 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drinne" and "dritte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dirne vs drinne". 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 #1,657,527 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