der
[deːɐ̯]
The verdict
“der” is in the everyday core of German, ranked #2 in German word frequency and used as a determiner.
- #2
- frequency rank, German
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - definiter Artikel (bestimmtes Geschlechtswort)
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | der |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Determiner |
| IPA | [deːɐ̯] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #2 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “der” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for der is 3 letters long, classified as a determiner, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [deːɐ̯]. Corpus data places it at rank #2 in overall German word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "definiter Artikel (bestimmtes Geschlechtswort)".
No generated misspelling entries exist for der in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "du", "do", "dm", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct German form is der, spelled D-E-R.
Definition
- 1definiter Artikel (bestimmtes Geschlechtswort)
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “der”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is D-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [deːɐ̯] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “du” - see the side-by-side comparison. der vs du
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.