meatvsmortWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“meat” and “mort” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#43,349
“meat” frequency rank
#38,299
“mort” frequency rank
81648
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meat mort
Definition die als Nahrung gedachte Muskulatur der Tod

Where the eye mixes meat and mort

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. meat (CVVC) and mort (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
meat
4 ch
mort

Visual trap between meat and mort

A purely visual mix-up. meat ([miːt]) and mort ([mɔʁ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81648, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meat is recorded at frequency rank #43,349, classified as anoun, pronounced [miːt]. mort is at rank #38,299, tagged as anoun, pronounced [mɔʁ].

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 81648, this pair ranks #171,792 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of meat vs mort

Shared letters: mt. Private to "meat": ae. Private to "mort": or.

"meat" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "mort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meat ← emat · maet · meatt · mmeat
  • mort ← mmort · morrt · mortt · motr · mrot · omrt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "meat" for "mort" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([miːt] versus [mɔʁ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "meat" or "mort" show up more?
"mort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,299 in our German list, against #43,349 for "meat". 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 "meat" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,792 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meat" and "mort" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meat vs Mette". 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 #171,792 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