Deutsch homophones

Kain/kein

"Kain" is a name; "kein" is a pronoun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #38 of 483 German groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "Kain" arrives as a name, while "kein" is a pronoun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • No shared spelling stem: "Kain" is 4 letters, "kein" is 4; only the sound ties them.

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across Kain, kein: ikn. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • Kain

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC

    Inventory aikn · private a

  • kein

    4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC

    Inventory eikn · private e

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "Kain" when you mean: biblischer männlicher Eigenname
  • Write "kein" when you mean: null, nichts, Null

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • Kainakin · kainn · kani · kian · kkain
  • keinekin · keinn · keni · kien · kkein

Each spelling

Kain

name · /ˈkaɪ̯n/ · #34,205 frequency

biblischer männlicher Eigenname

kein

pronoun · /kaɪ̯n/ · #119 frequency

null, nichts, Null

Nearby German homophone groups

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list