their vs third, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#11,131
“their” frequency rank: #22,170
“third” frequency rank: 33301
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	their	third
Definition	ihr	dritte; dem zweiten folgend und dem vierten vorausgehend

Letter map: their vs third

Shared letters muted; letters that set their and third apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch

their

5 ch

third

Grammar separator: their vs third

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: their is apronoun and thirdanum. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 33301, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

their is recorded at frequency rank #11,131, classified as apron, pronounced […]. third is at rank #22,170, tagged as anum, pronounced [θɜːd].

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 33301, this pair ranks #1,688,940 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of their vs third

Shared letters: hirt. Private to "their": e. Private to "third": d.

"their" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC · "third" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

their ← hteir · tehir · theirr · theri · thheir · thier · ttheir
third ← htird · thhird · thidr · thirdd · thirrd · thrid · tihrd · tthird

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "their" for "third" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "their" is a pronoun and "third" a num, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "their" vs "third" - which ranks higher?

"their" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,131 in our German list, against #22,170 for "third". 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 "their" and "third".

Full dictionary entry for "their" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "third" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,688,940 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"their" and "third" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thin vs third". 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 #1,688,940 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.