sportsvstimesTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#7,990
“sports” frequency rank
#5,431
“times” frequency rank
13421
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sports times
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs sport Plural des Substantivs time

Letter map: sports vs times

Shared letters muted; letters that set sports and times apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sports runs 6 letters (CCVCCC) against times's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
sports
5 ch
times

Role in the sentence - sports and times

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sports is averb and timesanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13421, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sports is recorded at frequency rank #7,990, classified as averb, pronounced […]. times is at rank #5,431, tagged as anoun, 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 13421, this pair ranks #1,958,091 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sports vs times

Shared letters: st. Private to "sports": opr. Private to "times": eim.

"sports" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC  ·  "times" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sports ← psorts · soprts · sporrts · sporst · sportss · sportts · spotrs · spports
  • times ← itmes · tiems · timess · timmes · timse · tmies · ttimes

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sports" and "times" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sports" is a verb and "times" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "sports" or "times" show up more?
"times" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,431 in our German list, against #7,990 for "sports". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "sports" and "times".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sports" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "times" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,958,091 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sports" and "times" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sports". 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 #1,958,091 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