LeiternvslettenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Leitern is a unknown, letten is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Leitern” is an unknown and “letten” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,423
“Leitern” frequency rank
#46,806
“letten” frequency rank
71229
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Leitern letten
Definition Nominativ Plural der weiblichen Substantive Leiter Partizip Perfekt (past participle) des Verbs let

Letter map: Leitern vs letten

Shared letters muted; letters that set Leitern and letten apart highlighted. Shared run: 5. Leitern runs 7 letters (CVVCVCC) against letten's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

7 ch
Leitern
6 ch
letten

Part-of-speech tell for Leitern / letten

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Leitern is anunknown and lettenaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71229, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Leitern is recorded at frequency rank #24,423, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈlaɪ̯tɐn]. letten is at rank #46,806, tagged as averb, 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 71229, this pair ranks #422,851 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Leitern vs letten

Shared letters: elnt. Private to "Leitern": ir. Private to "letten": -.

"Leitern" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC  ·  "letten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Leitern ← elitern · leietrn · leiternn · leiterrn · leitren · leittern · letiern · lietern
  • letten ← eltten · leten · letetn · lettenn · lettne · lletten · lteten

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Leitern" for "letten" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Leitern" is an unknown and "letten" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Leitern" or "letten" show up more?
"Leitern" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #24,423 in our German list, against #46,806 for "letten". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "Leitern" and "letten". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Leitern" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "letten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #422,851 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Leitern" and "letten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "letten 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 #422,851 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