friendsvsmanningWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#11,235
“friends” frequency rank
#26,962
“manning” frequency rank
38197
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature friends manning
Definition Plural des Substantivs friend Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs man

Letter map: friends vs manning

Shared letters muted; letters that set friends and manning apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. friends (CCVVCCC) and manning (CVCCVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

7 ch
friends
7 ch
manning

Role in the sentence - friends and manning

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: friends is anoun and manningaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 7 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 38197, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

friends is recorded at frequency rank #11,235, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. manning is at rank #26,962, 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 38197, this pair ranks #1,570,311 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of friends vs manning

Shared letters: in. Private to "friends": defrs. Private to "manning": agm.

"friends" · 7 letters · shape CCVVCCC  ·  "manning" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • friendsffriends · firends · freinds · friedns · friendds · friendss · friennds · friensd
  • manningamnning · maning · maninng · mannign · manningg · manninng · mannnig · mmanning

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "friends" for "manning" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "friends" is a noun and "manning" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "friends" vs "manning" - which ranks higher?
"friends" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,235 in our German list, against #26,962 for "manning". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "friends" and "manning".

  • Full dictionary entry for "friends" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "manning" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,570,311 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "friends" and "manning" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "manning 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 #1,570,311 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