maidenvsmeldenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: maiden is a noun, melden is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#42,670
“maiden” frequency rank
#1,816
“melden” frequency rank
44486
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature maiden melden
Definition die Maid, die Magd ein Ereignis (beispielsweise einem Vorgesetzten oder einer offiziellen Stelle) berichten

Letter map: maiden vs melden

Shared letters muted; letters that set maiden and melden apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. maiden (CVVCVC) and melden (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
maiden
6 ch
melden

Part-of-speech tell for maiden / melden

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: maiden is anoun and meldenaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44486, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

maiden is recorded at frequency rank #42,670, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. melden is at rank #1,816, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈmɛldn̩].

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 44486, this pair ranks #1,384,677 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of maiden vs melden

Shared letters: demn. Private to "maiden": ai. Private to "melden": l.

"maiden" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "melden" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • maiden ← amiden · madien · maidden · maidenn · maidne · maiedn · miaden · mmaiden
  • melden ← emlden · medlen · meldden · meldenn · meldne · meledn · mellden · mleden

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "maiden" for "melden" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "maiden" is a noun and "melden" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "maiden" vs "melden" - which ranks higher?
"melden" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,816 in our German list, against #42,670 for "maiden". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "maiden" and "melden". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "maiden" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "melden" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,384,677 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "maiden" and "melden" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "maiden 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 #1,384,677 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