patervspowerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,439
“pater” frequency rank
#4,226
“power” frequency rank
12665
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pater power
Definition der Vater arm, dürftig

Letter map: pater vs power

Shared letters muted; letters that set pater and power apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
pater
5 ch
power

Grammar separator: pater vs power

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: pater is anoun and poweranadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12665, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pater is recorded at frequency rank #8,439, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. power is at rank #4,226, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈpoːvɐ].

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 12665, this pair ranks #1,962,806 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pater vs power

Shared letters: epr. Private to "pater": at. Private to "power": ow.

"pater" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "power" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paterapter · paetr · paterr · patre · patter · ppater · ptaer
  • poweropwer · poewr · powerr · powre · powwer · ppower · pwoer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pater" for "power" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "pater" is a noun and "power" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "pater" vs "power" - which ranks higher?
"power" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,226 in our German list, against #8,439 for "pater". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "pater" and "power".

  • Full dictionary entry for "pater" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "power" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,962,806 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pater" and "power" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pater 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 #1,962,806 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