criminalvsplantsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: criminal is a adjective, plants is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#38,036
“criminal” frequency rank
#49,962
“plants” frequency rank
87998
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature criminal plants
Definition kriminell, verbrecherisch Plural des Substantivs plant

Letter map: criminal vs plants

Shared letters muted; letters that set criminal and plants apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

8 ch
criminal
6 ch
plants

Part-of-speech tell for criminal / plants

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: criminal is anadjective and plantsanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 87998, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

criminal is recorded at frequency rank #38,036, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. plants is at rank #49,962, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 87998, this pair ranks #73,499 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of criminal vs plants

Shared letters: aln. Private to "criminal": cimr. Private to "plants": pst.

"criminal" · 8 letters · shape CCVCVCVC  ·  "plants" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • criminalccriminal · cirminal · criimnal · crimianl · criminall · criminla · criminnal · crimminal
  • plantslpants · palnts · plannts · plantss · plantts · platns · pllants · plnats

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "criminal" and "plants" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "criminal" is an adjective and "plants" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "criminal" or "plants" show up more?
"criminal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,036 in our German list, against #49,962 for "plants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "criminal" vs "plants" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "criminal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #73,499 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "criminal" and "plants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plants 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 #73,499 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