Deutsch homophones
Laien/leihen/lion
"Laien" is a noun; "leihen" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #5 of 483 German groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "Laien" arrives as a noun, while "leihen" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- No shared spelling stem: "Laien" is 5 letters, "leihen" is 6; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "Laien" is 5 letters, "lion" is 4; only the sound ties them.
- No shared spelling stem: "leihen" is 6 letters, "lion" is 4; only the sound ties them.
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across Laien, leihen, lion: iln. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
Laien
5 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVVC
Inventory aeiln · private ae
leihen
6 letters · 3 vowels · shape CVVCVC
Inventory ehiln · private eh
lion
4 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVVC
Inventory ilno · private o
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "Laien" when you mean: Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Laie
- Write "leihen" when you mean: eine Sache einer anderen Person für begrenzte Zeit zur Verfügung stellen
- Write "lion" when you mean: Löwe, in Afrika und Asien verbreitete Katzenart
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.