Which to use
“family” is a noun and “recent” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #7,759
- “family” frequency rank
- #48,411
- “recent” frequency rank
- 56170
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | family | recent |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Familie | kürzlich, jüngst |
Letter map: family vs recent
Shared letters muted; letters that set family and recent apart highlighted. No shared letter run. family (CVCVCV) and recent (CVCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.
Part-of-speech tell for family / recent
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and recentanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 6 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56170, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. recent is at rank #48,411, tagged as anadj, 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 56170, this pair ranks #950,704 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of family vs recent
Shared letters: none. Private to "family": afilmy. Private to "recent": cenrt.
"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV · "recent" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "family" for "recent" ever safe?
Which is more common, "family" or "recent"?
Useful next steps
Pair "family" vs "recent" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "recent" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #950,704 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "family" and "recent" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs recent". 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 #950,704 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.