famousvslateWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“famous” and “late” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#41,158
“famous” frequency rank
#14,348
“late” frequency rank
55506
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature famous late
Definition bekannt, berühmt spät

Letter map: famous vs late

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

6 ch
famous
4 ch
late

Pair insight - famous / late

famous and late are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55506, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

famous is recorded at frequency rank #41,158, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. late is at rank #14,348, 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 55506, this pair ranks #976,889 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of famous vs late

Shared letters: a. Private to "famous": fmosu. Private to "late": elt.

"famous" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • famous ← afmous · fammous · famosu · famouss · famuos · faomus · ffamous · fmaous
  • late ← laet · llate · ltae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "famous" for "late" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "famous" vs "late" - which ranks higher?
"late" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,348 in our German list, against #41,158 for "famous". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "famous" and "late". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "famous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "late" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #976,889 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "famous" and "late" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "famous 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 #976,889 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