Which to use
“known” is a verb and “Thompson” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #40,645
- “known” frequency rank
- #13,250
- “Thompson” frequency rank
- 53895
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | known | Thompson |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know | Familienname, Nachname |
Letter map: known vs Thompson
Shared letters muted; letters that set known and Thompson apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. known runs 5 letters (CCVCC) against Thompson's 8 (CCVCCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for known / Thompson
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: known is averb and Thompsonaname. On the page they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53895, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
known is recorded at frequency rank #40,645, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Thompson is at rank #13,250, tagged as aname, 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 53895, this pair ranks #1,040,122 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of known vs Thompson
Shared letters: no. Private to "known": kw. Private to "Thompson": hmpst.
"known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC · "Thompson" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "known" for "Thompson" ever safe?
Which is more common, "known" or "Thompson"?
What to do next
You've compared "known" and "Thompson". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "known" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Thompson" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,040,122 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "known" and "Thompson" 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 #1,040,122 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.