thinkingvstrostTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#31,821
“thinking” frequency rank
#8,296
“trost” frequency rank
40117
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thinking trost
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs think Drossel

Letter map: thinking vs trost

Shared letters muted; letters that set thinking and trost apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

8 ch
thinking
5 ch
trost

Part-of-speech tell for thinking / trost

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thinking is averb and trostanoun. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40117, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thinking is recorded at frequency rank #31,821, classified as averb, pronounced […]. trost is at rank #8,296, 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 40117, this pair ranks #1,517,598 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of thinking vs trost

Shared letters: t. Private to "thinking": ghikn. Private to "trost": ors.

"thinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC  ·  "trost" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thinkinghtinking · thhinking · thikning · thinikng · thinkign · thinkingg · thinkinng · thinkking
  • trostrtost · torst · trosst · trostt · trots · trrost · trsot · ttrost

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thinking" and "trost" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thinking" is a verb and "trost" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "thinking" vs "trost" - which ranks higher?
"trost" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,296 in our German list, against #31,821 for "thinking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "thinking" vs "trost" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "thinking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "trost" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,517,598 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thinking" and "trost" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs thinking". 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 #1,517,598 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