Which to use
“primus” is a num and “prius” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,711
- “primus” frequency rank
- #44,857
- “prius” frequency rank
- 70568
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | primus | prius |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | erster | eher, vorher, früher, zuvor |
Letter map: primus vs prius
Shared letters muted; letters that set primus and prius apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for primus / prius
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: primus is anum and priusanadverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 70568, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
primus is recorded at frequency rank #25,711, classified as anum, pronounced [ˈpriː.mus]. prius is at rank #44,857, tagged as anadv.
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 70568, this pair ranks #442,387 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of primus vs prius
Shared letters: iprsu. Private to "primus": m. Private to "prius": -.
"primus" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "prius" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "primus" for "prius" ever safe?
Frequency check: "primus" vs "prius" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "primus" and "prius". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "primus" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "prius" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #442,387 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "primus" and "prius" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prius vs pros". 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 #442,387 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.