givenvsopenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#48,187
“given” frequency rank
#2,607
“open” frequency rank
50794
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature given open
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs give etwas ist nicht geschlossen

Letter map: given vs open

Shared letters muted; letters that set given and open apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. given runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against open's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
given
4 ch
open

Grammar separator: given vs open

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: given is averb and openanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50794, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

given is recorded at frequency rank #48,187, classified as averb, pronounced […]. open is at rank #2,607, tagged as anadj, 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 50794, this pair ranks #1,160,219 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of given vs open

Shared letters: en. Private to "given": giv. Private to "open": op.

"given" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "open" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • given ← ggiven · gievn · givenn · givne · givven · gvien · igven
  • open ← oepn · openn · opne · oppen · poen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "given" and "open" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "given" is a verb and "open" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "given" or "open"?
"open" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,607 in our German list, against #48,187 for "given". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "given" vs "open" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "given" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "open" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,160,219 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "given" and "open" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "given 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 #1,160,219 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