AdligevsadligenTell them apart

Quick tell: Adlige is a noun, adligen is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Adlige” is a noun and “adligen” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,163
“Adlige” frequency rank
#23,819
“adligen” frequency rank
59982
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Adlige adligen
Definition weibliche Angehörige des Adels Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs adlig

Where the eye mixes Adlige and adligen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Adlige
7 ch
adligen

Look-alike desk: Adlige vs adligen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Adlige is [ˈaːdlɪɡə] while adligen is [ˈaːdlɪɡn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “Adlige” sits inside “adligen”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 59982, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Adlige is recorded at frequency rank #36,163, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈaːdlɪɡə]. adligen is at rank #23,819, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈaːdlɪɡn̩].

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 59982, this pair ranks #804,039 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Adlige vs adligen

Shared letters: adegil. Private to "Adlige": -. Private to "adligen": n.

"Adlige" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "adligen" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Adligeaddlige · adilge · adlgie · adlieg · adligge · adllige · aldige · dalige
  • adligenaddligen · adilgen · adlgien · adliegn · adligenn · adliggen · adligne · adlligen

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Adlige" and "adligen" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Adlige" is a noun and "adligen" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Adlige" or "adligen"?
"adligen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,819 in our German list, against #36,163 for "Adlige". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Adlige" and "adligen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Adlige" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "adligen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #804,039 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Adlige" and "adligen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "adelige vs Adlige". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #804,039 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list