machinesvsmarinesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: machines is a noun, marines is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“machines” is a noun and “marines” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#45,439
“machines” frequency rank
#33,182
“marines” frequency rank
78621
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature machines marines
Definition Plural von des Substantivs machine Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs marin

Letter map: machines vs marines

Shared letters muted; letters that set machines and marines apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. machines runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against marines's 7 (CVCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
machines
7 ch
marines

Part-of-speech tell for machines / marines

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: machines is anoun and marinesanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 78621, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

machines is recorded at frequency rank #45,439, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. marines is at rank #33,182, tagged as anadj, pronounced [maˈʁiːnəs].

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 78621, this pair ranks #234,182 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of machines vs marines

Shared letters: aeimns. Private to "machines": ch. Private to "marines": r.

"machines" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "marines" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • machines ← amchines · macchines · machhines · machiens · machiness · machinnes · machinse · machnies
  • marines ← amrines · mairnes · mariens · mariness · marinnes · marinse · marnies · marrines

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "machines" for "marines" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "machines" is a noun and "marines" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "machines" vs "marines" - which ranks higher?
"marines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,182 in our German list, against #45,439 for "machines". 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 "machines" and "marines". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "machines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "marines" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #234,182 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "machines" and "marines" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "machines 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 #234,182 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