undvsutWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: und is a conjunction, ut is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“und” is a conjunction and “ut” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,125
“und” frequency rank
#20,597
“ut” frequency rank
27722
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature und ut
Definition Et, concatène deux éléments dans une même relation. La première note de l’échelle des sons.

Where the eye mixes und and ut

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
und
2 ch
ut

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: und is \ʊnt\ while ut is \yt\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (conjunction vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27722, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

und is recorded at frequency rank #7,125, classified as aconj, pronounced \ʊnt\. ut is at rank #20,597, tagged as anoun, pronounced \yt\.

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 27722, this pair ranks #327,199 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of und vs ut

Shared letters: u. Private to "und": dn. Private to "ut": t.

"und" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "ut" · 2 letters · shape VC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "und" and "ut" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "und" is a conjunction and "ut" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "und" or "ut"?
"und" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,125 in our French list, against #20,597 for "ut". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list