fotovsRefugeeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“foto” and “Refugee” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#812
“foto” frequency rank
#45,541
“Refugee” frequency rank
46353
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature foto Refugee
Definition Licht Person, die aufgrund drohender Gefahr durch Krieg oder Verfolgung aus dem Staat, dessen Staatsangehörigkeit sie besitzt, fliehen musste

Letter map: foto vs Refugee

Shared letters muted; letters that set foto and Refugee apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. foto runs 4 letters (CVCV) against Refugee's 7 (CVCVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
foto
7 ch
Refugee

Spelling & dictionary notes on foto vs Refugee

foto and Refugee are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46353, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

foto is recorded at frequency rank #812, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Refugee is at rank #45,541, tagged as anoun, 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 46353, this pair ranks #1,321,968 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of foto vs Refugee

Shared letters: f. Private to "foto": ot. Private to "Refugee": egru.

"foto" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Refugee" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fotoffoto · fotto · ftoo · ofto
  • Refugeeerfugee · reffugee · refguee · refuege · refuge · refuggee · reufgee · rfeugee

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "foto" for "Refugee" ever safe?
No. They differ by 3 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "foto" or "Refugee"?
"foto" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #812 in our German list, against #45,541 for "Refugee". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "foto" vs "Refugee" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "foto" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Refugee" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,321,968 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "foto" and "Refugee" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs Refugee". 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 #1,321,968 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