evervssmokingWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: ever is a adverb, smoking is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ever” is an adverb and “smoking” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,356
“ever” frequency rank
#39,030
“smoking” frequency rank
52386
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ever smoking
Definition immer Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs smoke

Letter map: ever vs smoking

Shared letters muted; letters that set ever and smoking apart highlighted. No shared letter run. ever runs 4 letters (VCVC) against smoking's 7 (CCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ever
7 ch
smoking

Grammar separator: ever vs smoking

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ever is anadverb and smokingaverb. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52386, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ever is recorded at frequency rank #13,356, classified as anadv, pronounced […]. smoking is at rank #39,030, 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 52386, this pair ranks #1,098,948 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ever vs smoking

Shared letters: none. Private to "ever": erv. Private to "smoking": gikmnos.

"ever" · 4 letters · shape VCVC  ·  "smoking" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • evereevr · everr · evre · evver · veer
  • smokingmsoking · smkoing · smmoking · smoikng · smokign · smokingg · smokinng · smokking

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ever" and "smoking" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ever" is an adverb and "smoking" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "ever" or "smoking" show up more?
"ever" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,356 in our German list, against #39,030 for "smoking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ever" and "smoking". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ever" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "smoking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,098,948 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ever" and "smoking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs smoking". 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 #1,098,948 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