emivsewigTell them apart

Quick tell: emi is a verb, ewig is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“emi” is a verb and “ewig” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,706
“emi” frequency rank
#2,496
“ewig” frequency rank
41202
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature emi ewig
Definition mögen, Lust haben, im Begriff sein, geeignet sein (zu) endlos, zeitlich unbegrenzt

Letter map: emi vs ewig

Shared letters muted; letters that set emi and ewig apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
emi
4 ch
ewig

Part-of-speech tell for emi / ewig

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: emi is averb and ewiganadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41202, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

emi is recorded at frequency rank #38,706, classified as averb. ewig is at rank #2,496, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈeːvɪç].

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 41202, this pair ranks #1,486,357 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of emi vs ewig

Shared letters: ei. Private to "emi": m. Private to "ewig": gw.

"emi" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "ewig" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ewigeiwg · ewgi · ewigg · ewwig · weig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "emi" for "ewig" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "emi" is a verb and "ewig" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "emi" or "ewig" show up more?
"ewig" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,496 in our German list, against #38,706 for "emi". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "emi" and "ewig". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "emi" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ewig" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,486,357 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "emi" and "ewig" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "emi vs eo". 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 #1,486,357 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