knownvssquareConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#40,645
“known” frequency rank
#13,702
“square” frequency rank
54347
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature known square
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know Quadrat

Letter map: known vs square

Shared letters muted; letters that set known and square apart highlighted. No shared letter run. known runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against square's 6 (CCVVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
known
6 ch
square

Grammar separator: known vs square

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: known is averb and squareanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

known is recorded at frequency rank #40,645, classified as averb, pronounced […]. square is at rank #13,702, tagged as anoun, 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 54347, this pair ranks #1,022,472 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of known vs square

Shared letters: none. Private to "known": know. Private to "square": aeqrsu.

"known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "square" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • knownkknown · knnown · knonw · knownn · knowwn · knwon · konwn · nkown
  • squareqsuare · sqaure · sqquare · squaer · squarre · squrae · ssquare · suqare

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "known" for "square" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "known" is a verb and "square" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "known" or "square" show up more?
"square" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,702 in our German list, against #40,645 for "known". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "known" and "square". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "known" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "square" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,022,472 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "known" and "square" 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 #1,022,472 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