knownvsterraWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: known is a verb, terra is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#40,645
“known” frequency rank
#16,564
“terra” frequency rank
57209
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature known terra
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know Erd-

Letter map: known vs terra

Shared letters muted; letters that set known and terra apart highlighted. No shared letter run. known (CCVCC) and terra (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
known
5 ch
terra

Part-of-speech tell for known / terra

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: known is averb and terraanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57209, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

known is recorded at frequency rank #40,645, classified as averb, pronounced […]. terra is at rank #16,564, tagged as anadj, 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 57209, this pair ranks #910,233 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of known vs terra

Shared letters: none. Private to "known": know. Private to "terra": aert.

"known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "terra" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • knownkknown · knnown · knonw · knownn · knowwn · knwon · konwn · nkown
  • terraetrra · tera · terar · trera · tterra

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "known" for "terra" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "known" is a verb and "terra" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "known" or "terra"?
"terra" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,564 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

Pair "known" vs "terra" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "known" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "terra" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #910,233 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "known" and "terra" 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 #910,233 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