drinvsdünnWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: drin is a adverb, dünn is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“drin” is an adverb and “dünn” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,126
“drin” frequency rank
#5,934
“dünn” frequency rank
7060
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drin dünn
Definition eine Ortsangabe ‚innerhalb von etwas‘ verstärkend von geringer Dicke

Where the eye mixes drin and dünn

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
drin
4 ch
dünn

Look-alike desk: drin vs dünn

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drin is [dʁɪn] while dünn is [dʏn]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7060, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drin is recorded at frequency rank #1,126, classified as anadv, pronounced [dʁɪn]. dünn is at rank #5,934, tagged as anadj, pronounced [dʏn].

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 7060, this pair ranks #1,989,516 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of drin vs dünn

Shared letters: dn. Private to "drin": ir. Private to "dünn": ü.

"drin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "dünn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drinddrin · dirn · drinn · drni · drrin · rdin

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "drin" and "dünn" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drin" is an adverb and "dünn" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "drin" vs "dünn" - which ranks higher?
"drin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,126 in our German list, against #5,934 for "dünn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drin" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dünn" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,989,516 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drin" and "dünn" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dünn vs duran". 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 #1,989,516 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