familyvsstylesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#7,759
“family” frequency rank
#33,322
“styles” frequency rank
41081
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature family styles
Definition Familie 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs style

Letter map: family vs styles

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

6 ch
family
6 ch
styles

Role in the sentence - family and styles

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: family is anoun and stylesaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 6 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41081, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

family is recorded at frequency rank #7,759, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. styles is at rank #33,322, 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 41081, this pair ranks #1,489,922 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of family vs styles

Shared letters: ly. Private to "family": afim. Private to "styles": est.

"family" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "styles" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • familyafmily · faimly · familly · familyy · famiyl · famliy · fammily · ffamily
  • stylessstyles · stlyes · sttyles · styels · styless · stylles · stylse · styyles

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "family" and "styles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "family" is a noun and "styles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "family" or "styles" show up more?
"family" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,759 in our German list, against #33,322 for "styles". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "family" and "styles". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "family" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "styles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,489,922 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "family" and "styles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs styles". 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 #1,489,922 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