DinervsdünnerTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#30,512
“Diner” frequency rank
#13,580
“dünner” frequency rank
44092
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Diner dünner
Definition mehrgängiges Mahl zu Mittag oder am Abend, das in einem festlichen Rahmen stattfindet Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs dünn

Where the eye mixes Diner and dünner

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Diner
6 ch
dünner

Look-alike desk: Diner vs dünner

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Diner is [diˈneː] while dünner is [ˈdʏnɐ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44092, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Diner is recorded at frequency rank #30,512, classified as anoun, pronounced [diˈneː]. dünner is at rank #13,580, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈdʏnɐ].

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 44092, this pair ranks #1,397,294 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Diner vs dünner

Shared letters: denr. Private to "Diner": i. Private to "dünner": ü.

"Diner" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "dünner" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Dinerddiner · dienr · dinerr · dinre · dnier

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Diner" and "dünner" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Diner" is a noun and "dünner" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Diner" or "dünner" show up more?
"dünner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,580 in our German list, against #30,512 for "Diner". 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 "Diner" and "dünner" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Diner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dünner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,397,294 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Diner" and "dünner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "diet vs Diner". 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 #1,397,294 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