trail
[tʁɛl]
The verdict
“trail” is a moderately-common German word, ranked #20,436 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #20,436
- frequency rank, German
- 5
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Geländemotorrad
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 | trail |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [tʁɛl] |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #20,436 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “trail” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for trail is 5 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [tʁɛl]. Corpus data places it at rank #20,436 in overall German word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for trail, with forms such as "rtail", "taril", and "traill". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "trat", "Trio", "Trip", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is trail, spelled T-R-A-I-L.
Definition
- 1Geländemotorrad
- 2Landschaftslauf, Traillauf
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: rtail,taril,traill,trali,trrail,ttrail
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of trail - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 "trail"?
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Using “trail”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is T-R-A-I-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [tʁɛl] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “trat” - see the side-by-side comparison. trail vs trat
- 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.