Which to use
“police” and “Polio” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #12,560
- “police” frequency rank
- #47,649
- “Polio” frequency rank
- 60209
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | police | Polio |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Polizei | virale Infektionskrankheit, meist bei Kindern oder Jugendlichen, welche die Extremitäten lähmen kann |
Where the eye mixes police and Polio
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. police runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against Polio's 5 (CVCVV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Visual trap between police and Polio
A purely visual mix-up. police ([pəˈliːs]) and Polio ([ˈpoli̯o]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60209, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
police is recorded at frequency rank #12,560, classified as anoun, pronounced [pəˈliːs]. Polio is at rank #47,649, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpoli̯o].
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 60209, this pair ranks #795,577 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of police vs Polio
Shared letters: ilop. Private to "police": ce. Private to "Polio": -.
"police" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "Polio" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "police" and "Polio" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary German text, does "police" or "Polio" show up more?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "police" and "Polio" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "police" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Polio" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #795,577 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "police" and "Polio" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Polin vs Polio". 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 #795,577 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.