Which to use
“dritte” is a num and “drittes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #1,155
- “dritte” frequency rank
- #8,698
- “drittes” frequency rank
- 9853
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | dritte | drittes |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | nach dem oder der zweiten kommend | Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs dritte |
Where the eye mixes dritte and drittes
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.
Visual trap between dritte and drittes
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: dritte is [ˈdʁɪtə] while drittes is [ˈdʁɪtəs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “dritte” sits inside “drittes”, and the parts of speech differ too (num vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9853, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
dritte is recorded at frequency rank #1,155, classified as anum, pronounced [ˈdʁɪtə]. drittes is at rank #8,698, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈdʁɪtəs].
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 9853, this pair ranks #1,977,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of dritte vs drittes
Shared letters: deirt. Private to "dritte": -. Private to "drittes": s.
"dritte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV · "drittes" · 7 letters · shape CCVCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "dritte" for "drittes" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "dritte" or "drittes" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "dritte" and "drittes" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "dritte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "drittes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,977,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "dritte" and "drittes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dritteln vs drittes". 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 #1,977,985 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.