RechtvsrichtTell them apart

Quick tell: Recht is a noun, richt is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Recht” is a noun and “richt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#227
“Recht” frequency rank
#37,164
“richt” frequency rank
37391
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Recht richt
Definition staatlich festgelegte und anerkannte Ordnung des menschlichen Zusammenlebens, deren Einhaltung durch staatlich organisierten Zwang garantiert wird 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs richten

Where the eye mixes Recht and richt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Recht and richt follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Recht
5 ch
richt

Why the eye confuses Recht with richt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Recht is [ʁɛçt] while richt is [ʁɪçt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “Recht” becomes i in “richt”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 37391, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Recht is recorded at frequency rank #227, classified as anoun, pronounced [ʁɛçt]. richt is at rank #37,164, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʁɪçt].

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 37391, this pair ranks #1,591,497 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Recht vs richt

Shared letters: chrt. Private to "Recht": e. Private to "richt": i.

"Recht" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "richt" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Rechtercht · rceht · reccht · rechht · rechtt · recth · rehct · rrecht
  • richtircht · rciht · riccht · richht · richtt · ricth · rihct · rricht

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Recht" and "richt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Recht" is a noun and "richt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Recht" vs "richt" - which ranks higher?
"Recht" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #227 in our German list, against #37,164 for "richt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Recht" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "richt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,591,497 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Recht" and "richt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rech vs richt". 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 #1,591,497 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