RestvsrottTell them apart

Quick tell: Rest is a noun, rott is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Rest” is a noun and “rott” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,119
“Rest” frequency rank
#30,266
“rott” frequency rank
31385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Rest rott
Definition übrig bleibender Teil des Ganzen im Verfall/in Zersetzung begriffen

Where the eye mixes Rest and rott

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Rest
4 ch
rott

Visual trap between Rest and rott

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Rest is [ʁɛst] while rott is [ʁɔt]. 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 31385, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Rest is recorded at frequency rank #1,119, classified as anoun, pronounced [ʁɛst]. rott is at rank #30,266, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ʁɔt].

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 31385, this pair ranks #1,729,194 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Rest vs rott

Shared letters: rt. Private to "Rest": es. Private to "rott": o.

"Rest" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "rott" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Restresst · restt · rets · rrest · rset
  • rottortt · rrott · rtot

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Rest" and "rott" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Rest" is a noun and "rott" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Rest" or "rott" show up more?
"Rest" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,119 in our German list, against #30,266 for "rott". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

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 "Rest" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rott" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,729,194 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Rest" and "rott" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rofl vs rott". 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 #1,729,194 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