Which to use
“family” is a noun and “Mary” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,759
- “family” frequency rank
- #4,536
- “Mary” frequency rank
- 12295
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | family | Mary |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Familie | weiblicher Vorname |
Letter map: family vs Mary
Shared letters muted; letters that set family and Mary apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. family runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against Mary's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - family and Mary
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and Maryaname. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12295, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Mary is at rank #4,536, tagged as aname, 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 12295, this pair ranks #1,965,034 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of family vs Mary
Shared letters: amy. Private to "family": fil. Private to "Mary": r.
"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "Mary" · 4 letters · shape CVCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "family" and "Mary" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary German text, does "family" or "Mary" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "family" and "Mary".
- Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Mary" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,965,034 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "family" and "Mary" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "family 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 #1,965,034 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.