flyingvspasteConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#23,936
“flying” frequency rank
#24,065
“paste” frequency rank
48001
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature flying paste
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs fly Paste

Letter map: flying vs paste

Shared letters muted; letters that set flying and paste apart highlighted. No shared letter run. flying runs 6 letters (CCVVCC) against paste's 5 (CVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
flying
5 ch
paste

Grammar separator: flying vs paste

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: flying is averb and pasteanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48001, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flying is recorded at frequency rank #23,936, classified as averb, pronounced […]. paste is at rank #24,065, tagged as anoun, 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 48001, this pair ranks #1,264,386 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of flying vs paste

Shared letters: none. Private to "flying": fgilny. Private to "paste": aepst.

"flying" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC  ·  "paste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • flyingfflying · fliyng · fllying · flyign · flyingg · flyinng · flynig · flyying
  • pasteapste · paset · pastte · patse · ppaste · psate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "flying" for "paste" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "flying" is a verb and "paste" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "flying" or "paste" show up more?
"flying" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,936 in our German list, against #24,065 for "paste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "flying" and "paste". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "flying" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "paste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,264,386 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "flying" and "paste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paste 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 #1,264,386 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