FlöhevsflossWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Flöhe is a noun, floss is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Flöhe” is a noun and “floss” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,346
“Flöhe” frequency rank
#12,709
“floss” frequency rank
52055
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Flöhe floss
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Floh 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs fließen

Where the eye mixes Flöhe and floss

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Flöhe
5 ch
floss

Look-alike desk: Flöhe vs floss

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Flöhe is [ˈfløːə] while floss is [flɔs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52055, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Flöhe is recorded at frequency rank #39,346, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈfløːə]. floss is at rank #12,709, tagged as averb, pronounced [flɔs].

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 52055, this pair ranks #1,111,702 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Flöhe vs floss

Shared letters: fl. Private to "Flöhe": ehö. Private to "floss": os.

"Flöhe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "floss" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flossffloss · flloss · flos · floß · flsos · folss · lfoss

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Flöhe" and "floss" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Flöhe" is a noun and "floss" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Flöhe" or "floss" show up more?
"floss" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,709 in our German list, against #39,346 for "Flöhe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Flöhe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "floss" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,111,702 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Flöhe" and "floss" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Flöhe vs Flure". 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 #1,111,702 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