mitvsmustWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mit is a preposition, must is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mit” is a preposition and “must” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#12
“mit” frequency rank
#11,712
“must” frequency rank
11724
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mit must
Definition etwas oder jemandem angeschlossen oder damit als gewisse Einheit verbunden; zusammen 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs musen

Where the eye mixes mit and must

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
mit
4 ch
must

Visual trap between mit and must

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: mit is [mɪt] while must is [muːst]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (preposition vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11724, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mit is recorded at frequency rank #12, classified as aprep, pronounced [mɪt]. must is at rank #11,712, tagged as averb, pronounced [muːst].

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 11724, this pair ranks #1,968,281 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mit vs must

Shared letters: mt. Private to "mit": i. Private to "must": su.

"mit" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "must" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mustmmust · msut · mustt · muts · umst

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mit" for "must" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mit" is a preposition and "must" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "mit" or "must" show up more?
"mit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12 in our German list, against #11,712 for "must". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "mit" and "must" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mit" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "must" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,968,281 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mit" and "must" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "münz vs must". 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 #1,968,281 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