fingersvstheirConfusable pair

Quick tell: fingers is a verb, their is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#35,771
“fingers” frequency rank
#11,131
“their” frequency rank
46902
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fingers their
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs finger ihr

Letter map: fingers vs their

Shared letters muted; letters that set fingers and their apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. fingers runs 7 letters (CVCCVCC) against their's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
fingers
5 ch
their

Part-of-speech tell for fingers / their

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fingers is averb and theirapronoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46902, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fingers is recorded at frequency rank #35,771, classified as averb, pronounced […]. their is at rank #11,131, tagged as apron, 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 46902, this pair ranks #1,303,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of fingers vs their

Shared letters: eir. Private to "fingers": fgns. Private to "their": ht.

"fingers" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "their" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • fingersffingers · figners · finegrs · fingerrs · fingerss · fingesr · finggers · fingres
  • theirhteir · tehir · theirr · theri · thheir · thier · ttheir

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "fingers" and "their" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fingers" is a verb and "their" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "fingers" vs "their" - which ranks higher?
"their" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,131 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.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "fingers" and "their".

  • Full dictionary entry for "fingers" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "their" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,303,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fingers" and "their" 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 #1,303,054 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