routingvstheirWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: routing is a verb, their is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“routing” is a verb and “their” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,880
“routing” frequency rank
#11,131
“their” frequency rank
56011
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature routing their
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs rout ihr

Letter map: routing vs their

Shared letters muted; letters that set routing and their apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. routing runs 7 letters (CVVCVCC) against their's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
routing
5 ch
their

Grammar separator: routing vs their

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: routing is averb and theirapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56011, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

routing is recorded at frequency rank #44,880, classified as averb, pronounced […]. their is at rank #11,131, tagged as apron, 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 56011, this pair ranks #957,114 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of routing vs their

Shared letters: irt. Private to "routing": gnou. Private to "their": eh.

"routing" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC  ·  "their" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • routingoruting · rotuing · rouitng · routign · routingg · routinng · routnig · routting
  • theirhteir · tehir · theirr · theri · thheir · thier · ttheir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "routing" and "their" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "routing" is a verb and "their" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "routing" or "their"?
"their" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,131 in our German list, against #44,880 for "routing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "routing" and "their".

  • Full dictionary entry for "routing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "their" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #957,114 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "routing" and "their" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs routing". 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 #957,114 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