meidevsmeinenWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#38,897
“meide” frequency rank
#280
“meinen” frequency rank
39177
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meide meinen
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs meiden einen bestimmten Standpunkt oder eine bestimmte Meinung vertreten

Where the eye mixes meide and meinen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. meide runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against meinen's 6 (CVVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
meide
6 ch
meinen

Visual trap between meide and meinen

A purely visual mix-up. meide ([ˈmaɪ̯də]) and meinen ([ˈmaɪ̯nən]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39177, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meide is recorded at frequency rank #38,897, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈmaɪ̯də]. meinen is at rank #280, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈmaɪ̯nən].

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 39177, this pair ranks #1,543,966 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meide vs meinen

Shared letters: eim. Private to "meide": d. Private to "meinen": n.

"meide" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "meinen" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meide ← emide · medie · meidde · meied · miede · mmeide
  • meinen ← eminen · meienn · meinenn · meinnen · menien · mienen · mmeinen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "meide" and "meinen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈmaɪ̯də] versus [ˈmaɪ̯nən]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "meide" or "meinen" show up more?
"meinen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #280 in our German list, against #38,897 for "meide". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "meide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meinen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,543,966 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meide" and "meinen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meide vs Mette". 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 #1,543,966 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