openvsOpusWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: open is a adjective, Opus is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#2,607
“open” frequency rank
#20,690
“Opus” frequency rank
23297
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature open Opus
Definition etwas ist nicht geschlossen Werk eines Künstlers/Wissenschaftlers

Letter map: open vs Opus

Shared letters muted; letters that set open and Opus apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
open
4 ch
Opus

Part-of-speech tell for open / Opus

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: open is anadjective and Opusanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23297, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

open is recorded at frequency rank #2,607, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. Opus is at rank #20,690, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈoːpʊs].

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 23297, this pair ranks #1,863,098 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of open vs Opus

Shared letters: op. Private to "open": en. Private to "Opus": su.

"open" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "Opus" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • openoepn · openn · opne · oppen · poen
  • Opusoppus · opsu · opuss · oups · pous

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "open" for "Opus" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "open" is an adjective and "Opus" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "open" vs "Opus" - which ranks higher?
"open" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,607 in our German list, against #20,690 for "Opus". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "open" and "Opus". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "open" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Opus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,863,098 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "open" and "Opus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Opal vs Opus". 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 #1,863,098 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