GerätvsgreatWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,109
“Gerät” frequency rank
#8,381
“great” frequency rank
10490
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Gerät great
Definition ein Werkzeug oder Hilfsmittel; ein (ursprünglich einfach aufgebauter) beweglicher Gegenstand, mit dem etwas bewirkt werden kann sehr groß

Where the eye mixes Gerät and great

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

5 ch
Gerät
5 ch
great

Look-alike desk: Gerät vs great

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Gerät is [ɡəˈʁɛːt] while great is [ɡɹeɪt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10490, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Gerät is recorded at frequency rank #2,109, classified as anoun, pronounced [ɡəˈʁɛːt]. 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 10490, this pair ranks #1,974,873 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Gerät vs great

Shared letters: egrt. Private to "Gerät": ä. Private to "great": a.

"Gerät" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "great" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • greatgerat · ggreat · graet · greatt · greta · grreat · rgeat

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Gerät" for "great" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Gerät" is a noun and "great" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Gerät" vs "great" - which ranks higher?
"Gerät" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,109 in our German list, against #8,381 for "great". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Gerät" 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 #1,974,873 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Gerät" 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 #1,974,873 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