Which to use
“friends” is a noun and “known” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #11,235
- “friends” frequency rank
- #40,645
- “known” frequency rank
- 51880
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | friends | known |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Plural des Substantivs friend | Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know |
Letter map: friends vs known
Shared letters muted; letters that set friends and known apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. friends runs 7 letters (CCVVCCC) against known's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Role in the sentence - friends and known
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: friends is anoun and knownaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51880, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
friends is recorded at frequency rank #11,235, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. known is at rank #40,645, 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 51880, this pair ranks #1,118,465 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of friends vs known
Shared letters: n. Private to "friends": defirs. Private to "known": kow.
"friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC · "known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "friends" and "known" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "friends" or "known"?
Useful next steps
Pair "friends" vs "known" 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 "known" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,118,465 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "friends" and "known" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "known 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 #1,118,465 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.