missingvsphotoConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#43,357
“missing” frequency rank
#13,909
“photo” frequency rank
57266
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature missing photo
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs miss Foto

Letter map: missing vs photo

Shared letters muted; letters that set missing and photo apart highlighted. No shared letter run. missing runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against photo's 5 (CCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
missing
5 ch
photo

Role in the sentence - missing and photo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: missing is averb and photoanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57266, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

missing is recorded at frequency rank #43,357, classified as averb, pronounced […]. photo is at rank #13,909, tagged as anoun, 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 57266, this pair ranks #908,014 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of missing vs photo

Shared letters: none. Private to "missing": gimns. Private to "photo": hopt.

"missing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "photo" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • missing ← imssing · mising · misisng · missign · missingg · missinng · missnig · mißing
  • photo ← hpoto · phhoto · phoot · photto · phtoo · pohto · pphoto

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "missing" for "photo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "missing" is a verb and "photo" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "missing" vs "photo" - which ranks higher?
"photo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,909 in our German list, against #43,357 for "missing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "missing" and "photo".

  • Full dictionary entry for "missing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "photo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #908,014 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "missing" and "photo" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "missing 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 #908,014 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