policy vs ultra, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“policy” is a noun and “ultra” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,150
“policy” frequency rank: #8,146
“ultra” frequency rank: 22296
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	policy	ultra
Definition	Politik auf der inhaltlichen Ebene, in Abgrenzung zu polity und politics	weiter hinaus, jenseits, dahinter

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set policy and ultra apart are highlighted. They share 1 letter in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

policy

5 ch

ultra

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: policy is anoun and ultraanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22296, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

policy is recorded at frequency rank #14,150, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. ultra is at rank #8,146, tagged as anadv, 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 22296, this pair ranks #1,875,896 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of policy vs ultra

Shared letters: l. Private to "policy": ciopy. Private to "ultra": artu.

"policy" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "ultra" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

policy ← oplicy · ploicy · poilcy · polciy · policcy · policyy · poliyc · pollicy
ultra ← lutra · ulltra · ulrta · ultar · ultrra · ulttra · utlra

Frequency comparison

policy#14,150

ultra#8,146

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "policy" and "ultra" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "policy" is a noun and "ultra" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "policy" or "ultra"?

"ultra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,146 in our German list, against #14,150 for "policy". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering policy vs ultra

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a noun, it's “policy”; for an adverb, it's “ultra”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “policy” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable