fortunevsmarksWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fortune is a noun, marks is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fortune” is a noun and “marks” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,054
“fortune” frequency rank
#25,230
“marks” frequency rank
55284
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fortune marks
Definition Schicksal, Zukunft 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs mark

Letter map: fortune vs marks

Shared letters muted; letters that set fortune and marks apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. fortune runs 7 letters (CVCCVCV) against marks's 5 (CVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
fortune
5 ch
marks

Grammar separator: fortune vs marks

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fortune is anoun and marksaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55284, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fortune is recorded at frequency rank #30,054, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. marks is at rank #25,230, tagged as averb, 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 55284, this pair ranks #985,580 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fortune vs marks

Shared letters: r. Private to "fortune": efnotu. Private to "marks": akms.

"fortune" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCV  ·  "marks" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fortune ← ffortune · forrtune · fortnue · forttune · fortuen · fortunne · forutne · fotrune
  • marks ← amrks · makrs · markks · markss · marrks · marsk · mmarks · mraks

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fortune" and "marks" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fortune" is a noun and "marks" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fortune" vs "marks" - which ranks higher?
"marks" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,230 in our German list, against #30,054 for "fortune". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "fortune" vs "marks" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fortune" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marks" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #985,580 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fortune" and "marks" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fortune 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 #985,580 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