east vs erste, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“east” is a noun and “erste” is a num - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,842
“east” frequency rank: #250
“erste” frequency rank: 11092
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	east	erste
Definition	Ost(en) (Himmelsrichtung)	(zeitlich oder örtlich oder in einer anderen Reihenfolge) an vorderster Stelle sich befindend, dem zweiten vorangehend

Letter map: east vs erste

Shared letters muted; letters that set east and erste apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch

east

5 ch

erste

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: east is anoun and ersteanum. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11092, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

east is recorded at frequency rank #10,842, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. erste is at rank #250, tagged as anum, pronounced [ˈeːɐ̯stə].

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 11092, this pair ranks #1,971,739 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of east vs erste

Shared letters: est. Private to "east": a. Private to "erste": r.

"east" · 4 letters · shape VVCC · "erste" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

east ← aest · easst · eastt · eats · esat
erste ← errste · erset · ersste · erstte · ertse · esrte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "east" and "erste" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "east" is a noun and "erste" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "east" or "erste"?

"erste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #250 in our German list, against #10,842 for "east". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "east" and "erste". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "east" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "erste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,971,739 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"east" and "erste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "east vs puzzles". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.