foodvsoverConfusable pair

Quick tell: food is a noun, over is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“food” is a noun and “over” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,045
“food” frequency rank
#5,993
“over” frequency rank
13038
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature food over
Definition jede Substanz die von Menschen, Pflanzen oder Tieren aufgenommen wird, um das Überleben und das Wachstum zu ermöglichen, Nahrung vorbei, vorüber sein

Letter map: food vs over

Shared letters muted; letters that set food and over apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. food (CVVC) and over (VCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
food
4 ch
over

Part-of-speech tell for food / over

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: food is anoun and overanadverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 4 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13038, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

food is recorded at frequency rank #7,045, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. over is at rank #5,993, tagged as anadv, 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 13038, this pair ranks #1,960,504 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of food vs over

Shared letters: o. Private to "food": df. Private to "over": erv.

"food" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "over" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • food ← ffood · fod · fodo · foodd · ofod
  • over ← oevr · overr · ovre · ovver · voer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "food" and "over" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "food" is a noun and "over" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "food" or "over" show up more?
"over" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,993 in our German list, against #7,045 for "food". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "food" and "over". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "food" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "over" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,960,504 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "food" and "over" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "food 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 #1,960,504 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