voorvsvornTell them apart

Quick tell: voor is a preposition, vorn is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“voor” is a preposition and “vorn” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,106
“voor” frequency rank
#3,007
“vorn” frequency rank
50113
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature voor vorn
Definition gibt eine zeitliche/örtliche Reihenfolge an an der Vorderseite, am Anfang, im Vordergrund

Where the eye mixes voor and vorn

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. voor (CVVC) and vorn (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
voor
4 ch
vorn

Look-alike desk: voor vs vorn

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: voor is [voːr] while vorn is [fɔʁn]. 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 (preposition vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50113, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

voor is recorded at frequency rank #47,106, classified as aprep, pronounced [voːr]. vorn is at rank #3,007, tagged as anadv, pronounced [fɔʁn].

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 50113, this pair ranks #1,186,158 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of voor vs vorn

Shared letters: orv. Private to "voor": -. Private to "vorn": n.

"voor" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "vorn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • voor ← ovor · voorr · voro · vvoor
  • vorn ← ovrn · vonr · vornn · vorrn · vron · vvorn

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "voor" and "vorn" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "voor" is a preposition and "vorn" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "voor" or "vorn" show up more?
"vorn" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,007 in our German list, against #47,106 for "voor". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "voor" and "vorn" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "voor" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "vorn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,186,158 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "voor" and "vorn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "voip vs voor". 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 #1,186,158 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