portraitvsportraitsConfusable pair

Which to use

“portrait” and “portraits” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#14,897
“portrait” frequency rank
#26,573
“portraits” frequency rank
41470
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature portrait portraits
Definition Porträt Plural des Substantivs portrait

Letter map: portrait vs portraits

Shared letters muted; letters that set portrait and portraits apart highlighted. Shared run: 8. portrait runs 8 letters (CVCCCVVC) against portraits's 9 (CVCCCVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
portrait
9 ch
portraits

Pair insight - portrait / portraits

portrait and portraits are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “portrait” sits inside “portraits”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41470, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

portrait is recorded at frequency rank #14,897, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈpɔː(ɹ)tɹət]. portraits is at rank #26,573, 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 41470, this pair ranks #1,478,401 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of portrait vs portraits

Shared letters: aioprt. Private to "portrait": -. Private to "portraits": s.

"portrait" · 8 letters · shape CVCCCVVC  ·  "portraits" · 9 letters · shape CVCCCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • portrait ← oprtrait · porrtait · porrtrait · portarit · portraitt · portrati · portriat · portrrait
  • portraits ← oprtraits · porrtaits · porrtraits · portarits · portraist · portraitss · portraitts · portratis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "portrait" for "portraits" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “portrait” sits inside “portraits”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "portrait" or "portraits"?
"portrait" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,897 in our German list, against #26,573 for "portraits". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "portrait" and "portraits".

  • Full dictionary entry for "portrait" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "portraits" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,478,401 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "portrait" and "portraits" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "portraits 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 #1,478,401 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