knownvsofTell them apart

Quick tell: known is a verb, of is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“known” is a verb and “of” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,645
“known” frequency rank
#324
“of” frequency rank
40969
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature known of
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know von

Letter map: known vs of

Shared letters muted; letters that set known and of apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

5 ch
known
2 ch
of

Grammar separator: known vs of

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: known is averb and ofapreposition. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40969, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

known is recorded at frequency rank #40,645, classified as averb, pronounced […]. of is at rank #324, tagged as aprep, 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 40969, this pair ranks #1,493,077 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of known vs of

Shared letters: o. Private to "known": knw. Private to "of": f.

"known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "of" · 2 letters · shape VC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • knownkknown · knnown · knonw · knownn · knowwn · knwon · konwn · nkown

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "known" and "of" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "known" is a verb and "of" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "known" or "of"?
"of" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #324 in our German list, against #40,645 for "known". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "known" and "of".

  • Full dictionary entry for "known" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "of" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,493,077 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "known" and "of" 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 #1,493,077 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