firmvsfürsTell them apart

Quick tell: firm is a adjective, fürs is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“firm” is an adjective and “fürs” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,672
“firm” frequency rank
#1,292
“fürs” frequency rank
50964
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature firm fürs
Definition umfassende Kenntnisse und Erfahrungen auf einem speziellen Gebiet besitzend für das

Where the eye mixes firm and fürs

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. firm and fürs follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
firm
4 ch
fürs

Visual trap between firm and fürs

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: firm is [fɪʁm] while fürs is [fyːɐ̯s]. 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 (adjective vs abbrev), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50964, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

firm is recorded at frequency rank #49,672, classified as anadj, pronounced [fɪʁm]. fürs is at rank #1,292, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced [fyːɐ̯s].

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 50964, this pair ranks #1,153,709 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of firm vs fürs

Shared letters: fr. Private to "firm": im. Private to "fürs": sü.

"firm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "fürs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • firm ← ffirm · fimr · firmm · firrm · frim · ifrm

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "firm" and "fürs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "firm" is an adjective and "fürs" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "firm" or "fürs"?
"fürs" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,292 in our German list, against #49,672 for "firm". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "firm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "fürs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,153,709 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "firm" and "fürs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "firm 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 #1,153,709 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