liegvslimaWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#34,786
“lieg” frequency rank
#22,418
“lima” frequency rank
57204
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lieg lima
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs liegen grenzwertig

Letter map: lieg vs lima

Shared letters muted; letters that set lieg and lima apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
lieg
4 ch
lima

Part-of-speech tell for lieg / lima

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lieg is averb and limaanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57204, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lieg is recorded at frequency rank #34,786, classified as averb, pronounced [liːk]. lima is at rank #22,418, tagged as anadj.

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 57204, this pair ranks #910,407 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lieg vs lima

Shared letters: il. Private to "lieg": eg. Private to "lima": am.

"lieg" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "lima" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • liegileg · leig · liegg · lige · llieg
  • limailma · liam · limma · llima · lmia

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lieg" for "lima" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lieg" is a verb and "lima" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "lieg" or "lima" show up more?
"lima" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #22,418 in our German list, against #34,786 for "lieg". 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 "lieg" and "lima". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lieg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lima" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #910,407 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lieg" and "lima" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Lees vs lieg". 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 #910,407 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