FiletvsfixerWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Filet is a noun, fixer is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#48,889
“Filet” frequency rank
#48,147
“fixer” frequency rank
97036
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Filet fixer
Definition schmales, meist zartes Fleischstück von Rind, Schwein, Huhn oder entgrätetem Fisch Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs fix

Where the eye mixes Filet and fixer

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Filet and fixer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Filet
5 ch
fixer

Visual trap between Filet and fixer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Filet is [fiˈleː] while fixer is [ˈfɪksɐ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 97036, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Filet is recorded at frequency rank #48,889, classified as anoun, pronounced [fiˈleː]. fixer is at rank #48,147, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfɪksɐ].

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 97036, this pair ranks #5,044 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Filet vs fixer

Shared letters: efi. Private to "Filet": lt. Private to "fixer": rx.

"Filet" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "fixer" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Filet ← ffilet · fielt · filett · fillet · filte · fliet · iflet
  • fixer ← ffixer · fiexr · fixerr · fixre · fixxer · fxier · ifxer

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Filet" for "fixer" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Filet" is a noun and "fixer" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Filet" or "fixer" show up more?
"fixer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #48,147 in our German list, against #48,889 for "Filet". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Filet" and "fixer" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Filet" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fixer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #5,044 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Filet" and "fixer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Filet vs fist". 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 #5,044 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