lieh vs lips, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“lieh” is a verb and “lips” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#26,953
“lieh” frequency rank: #38,262
“lips” frequency rank: 65215
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	lieh	lips
Definition	1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs leihen	Plural des Substantivs lip

Letter map: lieh vs lips

Shared letters muted; letters that set lieh and lips apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch

lieh

4 ch

lips

Grammar separator: lieh vs lips

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lieh is averb and lipsanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65215, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lieh is recorded at frequency rank #26,953, classified as averb, pronounced [liː]. lips is at rank #38,262, 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 65215, this pair ranks #614,583 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of lieh vs lips

Shared letters: il. Private to "lieh": eh. Private to "lips": ps.

"lieh" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "lips" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

lieh ← ileh · liehh · lihe · llieh
lips ← ilps · lipps · lipss · lisp · llips · lpis

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lieh" for "lips" ever safe?

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

In ordinary German text, does "lieh" or "lips" show up more?

"lieh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #26,953 in our German list, against #38,262 for "lips". 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 "lieh" and "lips". Here's where to go from here.

Full dictionary entry for "lieh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "lips" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #614,583 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"lieh" and "lips" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lips 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 #614,583 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.