schoolvsschworWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#5,303
“school” frequency rank
#40,200
“schwor” frequency rank
45503
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature school schwor
Definition Schule 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs schwören

Where the eye mixes school and schwor

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
school
6 ch
schwor

Visual trap between school and schwor

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: school is [skuːl] while schwor is [ʃvoːɐ̯]. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45503, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

school is recorded at frequency rank #5,303, classified as anoun, pronounced [skuːl]. schwor is at rank #40,200, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʃvoːɐ̯].

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 45503, this pair ranks #1,350,812 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of school vs schwor

Shared letters: chos. Private to "school": l. Private to "schwor": rw.

"school" · 6 letters · shape CCCVVC  ·  "schwor" · 6 letters · shape CCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • schoolcshool · scchool · schhool · schol · scholo · schooll · scohol · shcool
  • schworcshwor · scchwor · schhwor · schowr · schworr · schwro · schwwor · scwhor

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "school" for "schwor" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "school" is a noun and "schwor" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "school" or "schwor" show up more?
"school" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,303 in our German list, against #40,200 for "schwor". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "school" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "schwor" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,350,812 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "school" and "schwor" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Schwaz vs schwor". 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 #1,350,812 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