Which to use
“een” is a num and “eigen” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #33,012
- “een” frequency rank
- #8,852
- “eigen” frequency rank
- 41864
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | een | eigen |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | eins; einer; ein einziger | jemandem oder etwas zugehörig, jemandem selbst gehörend |
Letter map: een vs eigen
Shared letters muted; letters that set een and eigen apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.
Part-of-speech tell for een / eigen
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: een is anum and eigenanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41864, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
een is recorded at frequency rank #33,012, classified as anum, pronounced […]. eigen is at rank #8,852, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈaɪ̯ɡn̩].
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 41864, this pair ranks #1,466,757 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of een vs eigen
Shared letters: en. Private to "een": -. Private to "eigen": gi.
"een" · 3 letters · shape VVC · "eigen" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
- eigen ← egien · eiegn · eiggen · iegen
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "een" for "eigen" ever safe?
Which is more common, "een" or "eigen"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "een" and "eigen".
- Full dictionary entry for "een" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "eigen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,466,757 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "een" and "eigen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "een 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 #1,466,757 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.