governmentvsthinkingConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#18,910
“government” frequency rank
#31,821
“thinking” frequency rank
50731
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature government thinking
Definition Regierung Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs think

Letter map: government vs thinking

Shared letters muted; letters that set government and thinking apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. government runs 10 letters (CVCVCCCVCC) against thinking's 8 (CCVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

10 ch
government
8 ch
thinking

Part-of-speech tell for government / thinking

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: government is anoun and thinkingaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50731, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

government is recorded at frequency rank #18,910, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. thinking is at rank #31,821, 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 50731, this pair ranks #1,162,619 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of government vs thinking

Shared letters: gnt. Private to "government": emorv. Private to "thinking": hik.

"government" · 10 letters · shape CVCVCCCVCC  ·  "thinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • government ← ggovernment · goevrnment · govenrment · govermnent · governemnt · governmennt · governmentt · governmetn
  • thinking ← htinking · thhinking · thikning · thinikng · thinkign · thinkingg · thinkinng · thinkking

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "government" and "thinking" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "government" is a noun and "thinking" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "government" or "thinking"?
"government" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,910 in our German list, against #31,821 for "thinking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "government" vs "thinking" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "government" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thinking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,162,619 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "government" and "thinking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs thinking". 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 #1,162,619 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