eenvsEkelWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: een is a num, Ekel is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“een” is a num and “Ekel” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#33,012
“een” frequency rank
#17,563
“Ekel” frequency rank
50575
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature een Ekel
Definition eins; einer; ein einziger starker körperlicher Abscheu

Letter map: een vs Ekel

Shared letters muted; letters that set een and Ekel apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. een runs 3 letters (VVC) against Ekel's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
een
4 ch
Ekel

Grammar separator: een vs Ekel

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: een is anum and Ekelanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50575, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

een is recorded at frequency rank #33,012, classified as anum, pronounced […]. Ekel is at rank #17,563, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈeːkl̩].

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 50575, this pair ranks #1,168,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of een vs Ekel

Shared letters: e. Private to "een": n. Private to "Ekel": kl.

"een" · 3 letters · shape VVC  ·  "Ekel" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Ekel ← eekl · ekell · ekkel · keel

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "een" for "Ekel" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "een" is a num and "Ekel" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "een" or "Ekel"?
"Ekel" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,563 in our German list, against #33,012 for "een". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "een" vs "Ekel" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "een" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ekel" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,168,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "een" and "Ekel" 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 #1,168,454 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