apelvsappelTell them apart

Which to use

“apel” and “appel” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,710
“apel” frequency rank
#25,889
“appel” frequency rank
74599
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature apel appel
Definition Apfel als Frucht des Apfelbaums Apfel

Letter map: apel vs appel

Shared letters muted; letters that set apel and appel apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. apel runs 4 letters (VCVC) against appel's 5 (VCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
apel
5 ch
appel

Spelling & dictionary notes on apel vs appel

apel and appel are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74599, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

apel is recorded at frequency rank #48,710, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. appel is at rank #25,889, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɑpəɫ].

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 74599, this pair ranks #329,230 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of apel vs appel

Shared letters: aelp. Private to "apel": -. Private to "appel": -.

"apel" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "appel" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • apel ← aepl · pael
  • appel ← apepl · papel

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "apel" and "appel" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "apel" vs "appel" - which ranks higher?
"appel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,889 in our German list, against #48,710 for "apel". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "apel" and "appel".

  • Full dictionary entry for "apel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "appel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #329,230 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "apel" and "appel" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "apel vs puzzles". 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 #329,230 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