Which to use
“appel” and “apple” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #25,889
- “appel” frequency rank
- #2,379
- “apple” frequency rank
- 28268
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | appel | apple |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Apfel | Frucht von [2]; Apfel |
Where the eye mixes appel and apple
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses appel with apple
A purely visual mix-up. appel ([ˈɑpəɫ]) and apple ([ˈæpəl]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ only by swapping two adjacent letters (el ↔ le) - a transposition the eye reads straight past. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28268, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
appel is recorded at frequency rank #25,889, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈɑpəɫ]. apple is at rank #2,379, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈæpəl].
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 28268, this pair ranks #1,787,754 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of appel vs apple
Shared letters: aelp. Private to "appel": -. Private to "apple": -.
"appel" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "apple" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "appel" and "apple" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "appel" or "apple"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "appel" and "apple" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "appel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "apple" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,787,754 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "appel" and "apple" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "appel vs appelle". 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 #1,787,754 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.