old
[əʊld]
The verdict
“old” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #6,574) as an adjective. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #6,574
- frequency rank, German
- 1,007
- “O” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Lebenszeitspanne beziehend: alt
Corpus desk
Index DE-old · old · German
old · rank #6,574 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #6,574
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 1,007
- PHOTO-FINISH Offizier
Nearest frequency peer: Offizier (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “old”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Nummern
Nummern
93,430 corpus weight
- objektiv
objektiv
93,429 corpus weight
- Offizier
Offizier
93,428 corpus weight
- old
old
93,427 corpus weight
- Optionen
Optionen
93,426 corpus weight
- Passwort
Passwort
93,425 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “old” sits against the nearest ranked German headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
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 | old |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | [əʊld] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #6,574 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Wo “old” in der deutschen Häufigkeit sitzt
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for old is neighbouring look-alikes ("on", "OP", …), not just typos; it is anadjective pronounced [əʊld]. Frequency #6,574 among 1,007 “O” headwords. Gloss: "Lebenszeitspanne beziehend: alt".
No misspelling variants are generated for old in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "on", "OP", "or", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct German form is old, spelled O-L-D.
Definition
- 1Lebenszeitspanne beziehend: alt
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how old appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
How old are you?
How old do you think she is?
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
How do you spell "old"?
What does "old" mean?
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Is PlainSpell free to use?
Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "old", not the corpus desk frequency band.
What to do next
You've looked up "old". Here's where to go from here.
- "old" maps to 20 confusable pairs in this vintage; the highest-scored is "on". View pair
- Usage frequency rank #6,574 among German headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
- Browse more German words in the "O" letter cohort. O–Z browse
PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.
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.