makervspoorConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#25,655
“maker” frequency rank
#31,733
“poor” frequency rank
57388
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maker poor
Definition wirtschaftlich: der Hersteller, der Fabrikant wenig Geld haben

Letter map: maker vs poor

Shared letters muted; letters that set maker and poor apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. maker runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against poor's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
maker
4 ch
poor

Role in the sentence - maker and poor

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maker is anoun and pooranadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57388, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maker is recorded at frequency rank #25,655, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. poor is at rank #31,733, 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 57388, this pair ranks #903,290 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maker vs poor

Shared letters: r. Private to "maker": aekm. Private to "poor": op.

"maker" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "poor" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maker ← amker · maekr · makerr · makker · mkaer · mmaker
  • poor ← opor · poorr · por · poro · ppoor

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maker" for "poor" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maker" is a noun and "poor" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "maker" or "poor" show up more?
"maker" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,655 in our German list, against #31,733 for "poor". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "maker" vs "poor" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "poor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #903,290 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maker" and "poor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "poor 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 #903,290 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