Which to use
“Politiker” is a noun and “positiver” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #889
- “Politiker” frequency rank
- #9,437
- “positiver” frequency rank
- 10326
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Politiker | positiver |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Person, die sich an der Politik beteiligt | Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs positiv |
Where the eye mixes Politiker and positiver
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. Politiker and positiver follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: Politiker vs positiver
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Politiker is [poˈliːtɪkɐ] while positiver is [ˈpoːzitiːvɐ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 10326, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
Politiker is recorded at frequency rank #889, classified as anoun, pronounced [poˈliːtɪkɐ]. positiver is at rank #9,437, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈpoːzitiːvɐ].
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 10326, this pair ranks #1,975,688 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of Politiker vs positiver
Shared letters: eioprt. Private to "Politiker": kl. Private to "positiver": sv.
"Politiker" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC · "positiver" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "Politiker" for "positiver" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "Politiker" or "positiver" show up more?
What to do next
Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.
- Full dictionary entry for "Politiker" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "positiver" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,975,688 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "Politiker" and "positiver" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "positivem vs positiver". 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 #1,975,688 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.