familyvsPieterWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#7,759
“family” frequency rank
#44,850
“Pieter” frequency rank
52609
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature family Pieter
Definition Familie männlicher Vorname

Letter map: family vs Pieter

Shared letters muted; letters that set family and Pieter apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. family (CVCVCV) and Pieter (CVVCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
family
6 ch
Pieter

Role in the sentence - family and Pieter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and Pieteraname. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 6 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52609, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. Pieter is at rank #44,850, 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 52609, this pair ranks #1,090,157 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of family vs Pieter

Shared letters: i. Private to "family": aflmy. Private to "Pieter": eprt.

"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "Pieter" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • familyafmily · faimly · familly · familyy · famiyl · famliy · fammily · ffamily
  • Pieteripeter · peiter · pieetr · pieterr · pietre · pietter · piteer · ppieter

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "family" for "Pieter" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "family" is a noun and "Pieter" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "family" or "Pieter"?
"family" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,759 in our German list, against #44,850 for "Pieter". 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 "family" and "Pieter". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Pieter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,090,157 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "family" and "Pieter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Pieter 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 #1,090,157 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