drinnevsdünneWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#33,538
“drinne” frequency rank
#9,353
“dünne” frequency rank
42891
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drinne dünne
Definition im Inneren Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs dünn

Where the eye mixes drinne and dünne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. drinne runs 6 letters (CCVCCV) against dünne's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
drinne
5 ch
dünne

Why the eye confuses drinne with dünne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: drinne is [ˈdʁɪnə] while dünne is [ˈdʏnə]. 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 (adverb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42891, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drinne is recorded at frequency rank #33,538, classified as anadv, pronounced [ˈdʁɪnə]. dünne is at rank #9,353, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈdʏnə].

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 42891, this pair ranks #1,435,219 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drinne vs dünne

Shared letters: den. Private to "drinne": ir. Private to "dünne": ü.

"drinne" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "dünne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drinne ← ddrinne · dirnne · drine · drnine · drrinne · rdinne

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "drinne" and "dünne" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "drinne" is an adverb and "dünne" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "drinne" vs "dünne" - which ranks higher?
"dünne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,353 in our German list, against #33,538 for "drinne". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "drinne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "dünne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,435,219 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drinne" and "dünne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Dirne vs drinne". 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 #1,435,219 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