energyvspoorWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: energy is a noun, poor is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“energy” is a noun and “poor” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,353
“energy” frequency rank
#31,733
“poor” frequency rank
40086
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature energy poor
Definition Fähigkeit Arbeit zu verrichten: Energie wenig Geld haben

Letter map: energy vs poor

Shared letters muted; letters that set energy and poor apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. energy runs 6 letters (VCVCCV) against poor's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
energy
4 ch
poor

Part-of-speech tell for energy / poor

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: energy is anoun and pooranadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40086, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

energy is recorded at frequency rank #8,353, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. poor is at rank #31,733, tagged as anadj, pronounced […].

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 40086, this pair ranks #1,518,460 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of energy vs poor

Shared letters: r. Private to "energy": egny. Private to "poor": op.

"energy" · 6 letters · shape VCVCCV  ·  "poor" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • energyeenrgy · enegry · energgy · energyy · enerrgy · eneryg · ennergy · enregy
  • pooropor · poorr · por · poro · ppoor

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "energy" and "poor" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "energy" is a noun and "poor" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "energy" vs "poor" - which ranks higher?
"energy" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,353 in our German list, against #31,733 for "poor". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "energy" and "poor".

  • Full dictionary entry for "energy" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,518,460 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "energy" and "poor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poor 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

Confusion rank #1,518,460 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