federalvslabsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21,247
“federal” frequency rank
#33,163
“labs” frequency rank
54410
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature federal labs
Definition föderativ Plural des Substantivs lab

Letter map: federal vs labs

Shared letters muted; letters that set federal and labs apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. federal runs 7 letters (CVCVCVC) against labs's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
federal
4 ch
labs

Grammar separator: federal vs labs

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: federal is anadjective and labsanoun. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54410, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

federal is recorded at frequency rank #21,247, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. labs is at rank #33,163, 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 54410, this pair ranks #1,020,017 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of federal vs labs

Shared letters: al. Private to "federal": defr. Private to "labs": bs.

"federal" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC  ·  "labs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • federal ← efderal · fdeeral · fedderal · fedearl · federall · federla · federral · fedreal
  • labs ← albs · labbs · labss · lasb · llabs

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "federal" for "labs" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "federal" is an adjective and "labs" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "federal" or "labs" show up more?
"federal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,247 in our German list, against #33,163 for "labs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "federal" and "labs". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "federal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "labs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,020,017 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "federal" and "labs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "labs 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 #1,020,017 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