familyvssoloWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: family is a noun, solo is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#7,759
“family” frequency rank
#5,222
“solo” frequency rank
12981
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature family solo
Definition Familie allein

Letter map: family vs solo

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

6 ch
family
4 ch
solo

Grammar separator: family vs solo

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and soloanadjective. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12981, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. solo is at rank #5,222, 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 12981, this pair ranks #1,960,849 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of family vs solo

Shared letters: l. Private to "family": afimy. Private to "solo": os.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • family ← afmily · faimly · familly · familyy · famiyl · famliy · fammily · ffamily
  • solo ← sloo · sollo · sool · ssolo

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "family" for "solo" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "family" is a noun and "solo" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "family" or "solo"?
"solo" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,222 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "solo" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,960,849 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "family" and "solo" 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 #1,960,849 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