empirevsmissingTell them apart

Quick tell: empire is a noun, missing is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“empire” is a noun and “missing” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#14,553
“empire” frequency rank
#43,357
“missing” frequency rank
57910
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature empire missing
Definition Imperium, Reich Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs miss

Letter map: empire vs missing

Shared letters muted; letters that set empire and missing apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. empire runs 6 letters (VCCVCV) against missing's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
empire
7 ch
missing

Part-of-speech tell for empire / missing

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: empire is anoun and missingaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57910, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

empire is recorded at frequency rank #14,553, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. missing is at rank #43,357, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 57910, this pair ranks #883,074 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of empire vs missing

Shared letters: im. Private to "empire": epr. Private to "missing": gns.

"empire" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV  ·  "missing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • empireemipre · emmpire · empier · empirre · emppire · emprie · epmire · mepire
  • missingimssing · mising · misisng · missign · missingg · missinng · missnig · mißing

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "empire" and "missing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "empire" is a noun and "missing" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "empire" or "missing" show up more?
"empire" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,553 in our German list, against #43,357 for "missing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "empire" and "missing". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "empire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "missing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #883,074 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "empire" and "missing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "missing 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 #883,074 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