fingersvslateWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: fingers is a verb, late is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“fingers” is a verb and “late” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#35,771
“fingers” frequency rank
#14,348
“late” frequency rank
50119
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fingers late
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs finger spät

Letter map: fingers vs late

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

7 ch
fingers
4 ch
late

Grammar separator: fingers vs late

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fingers is averb and lateanadjective. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50119, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fingers is recorded at frequency rank #35,771, classified as averb, 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 50119, this pair ranks #1,185,924 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fingers vs late

Shared letters: e. Private to "fingers": fginrs. Private to "late": alt.

"fingers" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "late" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fingersffingers · figners · finegrs · fingerrs · fingerss · fingesr · finggers · fingres
  • latelaet · llate · ltae

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "fingers" for "late" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fingers" is a verb and "late" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "fingers" or "late" show up more?
"late" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #14,348 in our German list, against #35,771 for "fingers". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "fingers" vs "late" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "fingers" 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 #1,185,924 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fingers" and "late" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fingers 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 #1,185,924 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