knownvswennsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#40,645
“known” frequency rank
#5,445
“wenns” frequency rank
46090
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature known wenns
Definition Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs know wenn es

Letter map: known vs wenns

Shared letters muted; letters that set known and wenns apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. known (CCVCC) and wenns (CVCCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
known
5 ch
wenns

Part-of-speech tell for known / wenns

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: known is averb and wennsanabbrev. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46090, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

known is recorded at frequency rank #40,645, classified as averb, pronounced […]. wenns is at rank #5,445, tagged as anabbrev, 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 46090, this pair ranks #1,330,968 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of known vs wenns

Shared letters: nw. Private to "known": ko. Private to "wenns": es.

"known" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "wenns" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • knownkknown · knnown · knonw · knownn · knowwn · knwon · konwn · nkown
  • wennsewnns · wennss · wens · wensn · wnens · wwenns

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "known" for "wenns" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "known" is a verb and "wenns" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "known" vs "wenns" - which ranks higher?
"wenns" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,445 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.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "known" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wenns" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,330,968 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "known" and "wenns" 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 #1,330,968 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