MedeavsmüdenTell them apart

Quick tell: Medea is a name, müden is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Medea” is a name and “müden” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#44,788
“Medea” frequency rank
#27,858
“müden” frequency rank
72646
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Medea müden
Definition kolchische Königstochter, Frau des Argonautenführers Iason Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs müde

Where the eye mixes Medea and müden

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Medea
5 ch
müden

Why the eye confuses Medea with müden

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Medea is [meˈdeːa] while müden is [ˈmyːdn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 72646, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Medea is recorded at frequency rank #44,788, classified as aname, pronounced [meˈdeːa]. müden is at rank #27,858, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈmyːdn̩].

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 72646, this pair ranks #382,456 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Medea vs müden

Shared letters: dem. Private to "Medea": a. Private to "müden": .

"Medea" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV  ·  "müden" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Medeaemdea · mdeea · medae · meddea · meeda · mmedea

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Medea" for "müden" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Medea" is a name and "müden" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Medea" or "müden" show up more?
"müden" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,858 in our German list, against #44,788 for "Medea". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Medea" and "müden" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Medea" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "müden" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #382,456 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Medea" and "müden" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Medea vs Memel". 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 #382,456 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