familyvsmegaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,759
“family” frequency rank
#3,982
“mega” frequency rank
11741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature family mega
Definition Familie die Erlaubnis haben; dürfen

Letter map: family vs mega

Shared letters muted; letters that set family and mega apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. family runs 6 letters (CVCVCV) against mega's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
family
4 ch
mega

Grammar separator: family vs mega

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and megaaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. mega is at rank #3,982, 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 11741, this pair ranks #1,968,179 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of family vs mega

Shared letters: am. Private to "family": fily. Private to "mega": eg.

"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "mega" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • family ← afmily · faimly · familly · familyy · famiyl · famliy · fammily · ffamily
  • mega ← emga · meag · megga · mgea · mmega

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "family" and "mega" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "family" is a noun and "mega" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "family" or "mega" show up more?
"mega" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,982 in our German list, against #7,759 for "family". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "family" and "mega".

  • Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mega" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,968,179 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "family" and "mega" 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 #1,968,179 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