insvsintusWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ins is a abbrev, intus is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ins” is an abbrev and “intus” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#192
“ins” frequency rank
#35,254
“intus” frequency rank
35446
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ins intus
Definition Beschreibung einer Richtung in etwas hinein - wohin? etwas vor kurzem getrunken oder gegessen haben

Where the eye mixes ins and intus

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ins
5 ch
intus

Look-alike desk: ins vs intus

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ins is [ɪns] while intus is [ˈɪntʊs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (abbrev vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35446, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ins is recorded at frequency rank #192, classified as anabbrev, pronounced [ɪns]. intus is at rank #35,254, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈɪntʊs].

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 35446, this pair ranks #1,639,799 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ins vs intus

Shared letters: ins. Private to "ins": -. Private to "intus": tu.

"ins" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "intus" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • intusinntus · intsu · inttus · intuss · inuts · itnus · nitus

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ins" and "intus" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ins" is an abbrev and "intus" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "ins" or "intus" show up more?
"ins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #192 in our German list, against #35,254 for "intus". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "intus" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,639,799 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ins" and "intus" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "intus vs ius". 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 #1,639,799 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