mountainsvspoliticalConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#30,691
“mountains” frequency rank
#13,668
“political” frequency rank
44359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mountains political
Definition Plural des Substantivs mountain politisch

Letter map: mountains vs political

Shared letters muted; letters that set mountains and political apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mountains (CVVCCVVCC) and political (CVCVCVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

9 ch
mountains
9 ch
political

Grammar separator: mountains vs political

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mountains is anoun and politicalanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 7 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mountains is recorded at frequency rank #30,691, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. political is at rank #13,668, 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 44359, this pair ranks #1,388,752 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of mountains vs political

Shared letters: aiot. Private to "mountains": mnsu. Private to "political": clp.

"mountains" · 9 letters · shape CVVCCVVCC  ·  "political" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mountainsmmountains · monutains · mounatins · mounntains · mountainns · mountainss · mountaisn · mountanis
  • politicaloplitical · ploitical · poiltical · poliitcal · politcial · politiacl · politicall · politiccal

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mountains" for "political" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mountains" is a noun and "political" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "mountains" vs "political" - which ranks higher?
"political" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,668 in our German list, against #30,691 for "mountains". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mountains" and "political".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mountains" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "political" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,388,752 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mountains" and "political" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mountains 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 #1,388,752 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