eglivsEileWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: egli is a pronoun, Eile is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“egli” is a pronoun and “Eile” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,875
“egli” frequency rank
#12,267
“Eile” frequency rank
58142
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature egli Eile
Definition er Verhalten oder Situation, etwas dringend erledigen zu müssen

Where the eye mixes egli and Eile

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

4 ch
egli
4 ch
Eile

Why the eye confuses egli with Eile

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: egli is [ˈeʎʎi] while Eile is [ˈaɪ̯lə]. 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 (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58142, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

egli is recorded at frequency rank #45,875, classified as apron, pronounced [ˈeʎʎi]. Eile is at rank #12,267, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈaɪ̯lə].

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 58142, this pair ranks #874,116 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of egli vs Eile

Shared letters: eil. Private to "egli": g. Private to "Eile": -.

"egli" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "Eile" · 4 letters · shape VVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • eglieggli · eglli · elgi
  • Eileeiel · eille · elie · iele

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "egli" for "Eile" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "egli" is a pronoun and "Eile" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "egli" or "Eile" show up more?
"Eile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,267 in our German list, against #45,875 for "egli". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "egli" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Eile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #874,116 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "egli" and "Eile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "egli vs Erle". 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 #874,116 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