machinesvsstarsWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“machines” and “stars” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#45,439
“machines” frequency rank
#3,921
“stars” frequency rank
49360
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature machines stars
Definition Plural von des Substantivs machine Plural des Substantivs star

Letter map: machines vs stars

Shared letters muted; letters that set machines and stars apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. machines runs 8 letters (CVCCVCVC) against stars's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
machines
5 ch
stars

Spelling & dictionary notes on machines vs stars

machines and stars are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49360, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

machines is recorded at frequency rank #45,439, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. stars is at rank #3,921, 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 49360, this pair ranks #1,214,428 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of machines vs stars

Shared letters: as. Private to "machines": cehimn. Private to "stars": rt.

"machines" · 8 letters · shape CVCCVCVC  ·  "stars" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • machinesamchines · macchines · machhines · machiens · machiness · machinnes · machinse · machnies
  • starssatrs · sstars · starrs · starss · stasr · stras · sttars · tsars

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "machines" and "stars" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 3 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "machines" or "stars" show up more?
"stars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,921 in our German list, against #45,439 for "machines". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "machines" and "stars".

  • Full dictionary entry for "machines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,214,428 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "machines" and "stars" 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 #1,214,428 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