murdervssportsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#46,860
“murder” frequency rank
#7,990
“sports” frequency rank
54850
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature murder sports
Definition Mord, Ermordung 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs sport

Letter map: murder vs sports

Shared letters muted; letters that set murder and sports apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. murder (CVCCVC) and sports (CCVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
murder
6 ch
sports

Role in the sentence - murder and sports

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: murder is anoun and sportsaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 6 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54850, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

murder is recorded at frequency rank #46,860, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. sports is at rank #7,990, tagged as averb, 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 54850, this pair ranks #1,002,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of murder vs sports

Shared letters: r. Private to "murder": demu. Private to "sports": opst.

"murder" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "sports" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • murdermmurder · mruder · mudrer · murdder · murderr · murdre · muredr · murrder
  • sportspsorts · soprts · sporrts · sporst · sportss · sportts · spotrs · spports

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "murder" for "sports" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "murder" is a noun and "sports" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "murder" vs "sports" - which ranks higher?
"sports" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,990 in our German list, against #46,860 for "murder". 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 "murder" and "sports".

  • Full dictionary entry for "murder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sports" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,002,579 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "murder" and "sports" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "murder 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 #1,002,579 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