feyvsfürTell them apart

Quick tell: fey is a adjective, für is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fey” is an adjective and “für” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,868
“fey” frequency rank
#16
“für” frequency rank
43884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fey für
Definition (aus dem schottischen) todgeweiht etwas oder jemand ist an etwas jemanden gerichtet, bestimmt, zugeordnet

Letter map: fey vs für

Shared letters muted; letters that set fey and für apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
fey
3 ch
für

Part-of-speech tell for fey / für

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fey is anadjective and fürapreposition. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fey is recorded at frequency rank #43,868, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. für is at rank #16, tagged as aprep, pronounced [fyːɐ̯].

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 43884, this pair ranks #1,403,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fey vs für

Shared letters: f. Private to "fey": ey. Private to "für": .

"fey" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "für" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fey" and "für" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fey" is an adjective and "für" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "fey" or "für" show up more?
"für" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16 in our German list, against #43,868 for "fey". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

You've compared "fey" and "für". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fey" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "für" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,403,892 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fey" and "für" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fey vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,403,892 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