MautvsmeetWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Maut is a noun, meet is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Maut” is a noun and “meet” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,753
“Maut” frequency rank
#23,232
“meet” frequency rank
31985
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Maut meet
Definition Zoll jemanden treffen, jemandem begegnen

Where the eye mixes Maut and meet

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. Maut and meet follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
Maut
4 ch
meet

Why the eye confuses Maut with meet

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Maut is [maʊ̯t] while meet is [miːt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31985, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Maut is recorded at frequency rank #8,753, classified as anoun, pronounced [maʊ̯t]. meet is at rank #23,232, tagged as averb, pronounced [miːt].

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 31985, this pair ranks #1,717,142 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Maut vs meet

Shared letters: mt. Private to "Maut": au. Private to "meet": e.

"Maut" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "meet" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Mautamut · matu · mautt · mmaut · muat
  • meetemet · meett · met · mete · mmeet

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Maut" for "meet" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Maut" is a noun and "meet" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Maut" or "meet" show up more?
"Maut" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,753 in our German list, against #23,232 for "meet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Maut" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meet" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,717,142 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Maut" and "meet" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meet vs Memel". 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 #1,717,142 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