gehtvsgreatConfusable pair

Quick tell: geht is a verb, great is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“geht” is a verb and “great” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#99
“geht” frequency rank
#8,381
“great” frequency rank
8480
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature geht great
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs gehen sehr groß

Where the eye mixes geht and great

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
geht
5 ch
great

Visual trap between geht and great

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: geht is [ɡeːt] while great is [ɡɹeɪt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8480, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

geht is recorded at frequency rank #99, classified as averb, pronounced [ɡeːt]. great is at rank #8,381, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɡɹeɪt].

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 8480, this pair ranks #1,984,101 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of geht vs great

Shared letters: egt. Private to "geht": h. Private to "great": ar.

"geht" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "great" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gehteght · gehht · gehtt · geth · ggeht · ghet
  • greatgerat · ggreat · graet · greatt · greta · grreat · rgeat

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "geht" and "great" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "geht" is a verb and "great" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "geht" or "great" show up more?
"geht" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #99 in our German list, against #8,381 for "great". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "geht" and "great" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "geht" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "great" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,984,101 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "geht" and "great" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "great vs greco". 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 #1,984,101 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