Which to use
“king” is a noun and “kling” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #3,384
- “king” frequency rank
- #24,403
- “kling” frequency rank
- 27787
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | king | kling |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | König | 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs klingen |
Where the eye mixes king and kling
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.
Look-alike desk: king vs kling
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: king is [kɪŋ] while kling is [klɪŋ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27787, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
king is recorded at frequency rank #3,384, classified as anoun, pronounced [kɪŋ]. kling is at rank #24,403, tagged as averb, pronounced [klɪŋ].
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 27787, this pair ranks #1,795,913 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of king vs kling
Shared letters: gikn. Private to "king": -. Private to "kling": l.
"king" · 4 letters · shape CVCC · "kling" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "king" and "kling" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "king" or "kling"?
After this comparison
Eye-level mix-up between "king" and "kling" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "king" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "kling" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,795,913 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "king" and "kling" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Kang vs kling". 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 #1,795,913 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.