eastvsesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: east is a noun, es is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#10,842
“east” frequency rank
#13
“es” frequency rank
10855
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature east es
Definition Ost(en) (Himmelsrichtung) ersetzt eine zuvor benutzte Nominalphrase im Neutrum (Person, Tier, Sache oder Abstraktum)

Letter map: east vs es

Shared letters muted; letters that set east and es apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
east
2 ch
es

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: east is anoun and esapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10855, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

east is recorded at frequency rank #10,842, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. es is at rank #13, tagged as apron, pronounced [ɛs].

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 10855, this pair ranks #1,972,977 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of east vs es

Shared letters: es. Private to "east": at. Private to "es": -.

"east" · 4 letters · shape VVCC  ·  "es" · 2 letters · shape VC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eastaest · easst · eastt · eats · esat

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "east" and "es" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "east" is a noun and "es" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "east" or "es"?
"es" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list