ku vs kung, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“ku” is a pronoun and “kung” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#17,061
“ku” frequency rank: #22,408
“kung” frequency rank: 39469
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	ku	kung
Definition	wo	monarchisches Oberhaupt eines Königreichs; König

Letter map: ku vs kung

Shared letters muted; letters that set ku and kung apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

2 ch

4 ch

kung

Grammar separator: ku vs kung

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ku is apronoun and kunganoun. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “ku” sits inside “kung”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39469, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ku is recorded at frequency rank #17,061, classified as apron, pronounced […]. kung is at rank #22,408, 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 39469, this pair ranks #1,535,938 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ku vs kung

Shared letters: ku. Private to "ku": -. Private to "kung": gn.

"ku" · 2 letters · shape CV · "kung" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

kung ← kkung · knug · kugn · kungg · kunng · ukng

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ku" and "kung" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ku" is a pronoun and "kung" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "ku" vs "kung" - which ranks higher?

"ku" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,061 in our German list, against #22,408 for "kung". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "ku" and "kung". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "ku" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "kung" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #1,535,938 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"ku" and "kung" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kung 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 #1,535,938 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.