pickenvspocketTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#45,512
“picken” frequency rank
#29,284
“pocket” frequency rank
74796
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature picken pocket
Definition mit dem Schnabel auf etwas einhacken, insbesondere Futterkörner Geldbeutel

Letter map: picken vs pocket

Shared letters muted; letters that set picken and pocket apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. picken and pocket follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
picken
6 ch
pocket

Role in the sentence - picken and pocket

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: picken is averb and pocketanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74796, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

picken is recorded at frequency rank #45,512, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈpɪkn̩]. pocket is at rank #29,284, tagged as anoun, 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 74796, this pair ranks #324,210 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of picken vs pocket

Shared letters: cekp. Private to "picken": in. Private to "pocket": ot.

"picken" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "pocket" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • picken ← ipcken · pciken · piccken · picekn · pickenn · pickken · pickne · pikcen
  • pocket ← opcket · pcoket · poccket · pocekt · pockett · pockket · pockte · pokcet

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "picken" and "pocket" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "picken" is a verb and "pocket" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "picken" or "pocket" show up more?
"pocket" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,284 in our German list, against #45,512 for "picken". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "picken" vs "pocket" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "picken" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "pocket" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #324,210 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "picken" and "pocket" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "picken vs Pinken". 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 #324,210 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