friendsvsincludingConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#11,235
“friends” frequency rank
#44,703
“including” frequency rank
55938
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature friends including
Definition Plural des Substantivs friend Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs include

Letter map: friends vs including

Shared letters muted; letters that set friends and including apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. friends runs 7 letters (CCVVCCC) against including's 9 (VCCCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
friends
9 ch
including

Role in the sentence - friends and including

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: friends is anoun and includingaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55938, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

friends is recorded at frequency rank #11,235, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. including is at rank #44,703, tagged as averb, 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 55938, this pair ranks #959,820 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of friends vs including

Shared letters: din. Private to "friends": efrs. Private to "including": cglu.

"friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC  ·  "including" · 9 letters · shape VCCCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • friends ← ffriends · firends · freinds · friedns · friendds · friendss · friennds · friensd
  • including ← icnluding · inccluding · inclduing · inclluding · includding · includign · includingg · includinng

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "friends" and "including" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "friends" is a noun and "including" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "friends" or "including"?
"friends" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,235 in our German list, against #44,703 for "including". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "friends" vs "including" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "friends" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "including" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #959,820 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "friends" and "including" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "including 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 #959,820 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