famousvsspiritTell them apart

Quick tell: famous is a adjective, spirit is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#41,158
“famous” frequency rank
#15,483
“spirit” frequency rank
56641
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature famous spirit
Definition bekannt, berühmt der Geist

Letter map: famous vs spirit

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

6 ch
famous
6 ch
spirit

Role in the sentence - famous and spirit

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: famous is anadjective and spiritanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 6 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56641, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

famous is recorded at frequency rank #41,158, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. spirit is at rank #15,483, tagged as anoun, 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 56641, this pair ranks #932,417 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of famous vs spirit

Shared letters: s. Private to "famous": afmou. Private to "spirit": iprt.

"famous" · 6 letters · shape CVCVVC  ·  "spirit" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • famous ← afmous · fammous · famosu · famouss · famuos · faomus · ffamous · fmaous
  • spirit ← psirit · siprit · spiirt · spiritt · spirrit · spirti · sppirit · spriit

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "famous" and "spirit" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "famous" is an adjective and "spirit" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "famous" or "spirit" show up more?
"spirit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,483 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.

What to do next

Pair "famous" vs "spirit" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "famous" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "spirit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #932,417 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "famous" and "spirit" 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 #932,417 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