meidevsmüdeWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: meide is a verb, müde is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meide” is a verb and “müde” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,897
“meide” frequency rank
#2,604
“müde” frequency rank
41501
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meide müde
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs meiden schläfrig, schlafbedürftig

Where the eye mixes meide and müde

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

5 ch
meide
4 ch
müde

Visual trap between meide and müde

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meide is [ˈmaɪ̯də] while müde is [ˈmyːdə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41501, 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]. müde is at rank #2,604, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈmyːdə].

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 41501, this pair ranks #1,477,523 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of meide vs müde

Shared letters: dem. Private to "meide": i. Private to "müde": ü.

"meide" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "müde" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meideemide · medie · meidde · meied · miede · mmeide

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "meide" and "müde" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meide" is a verb and "müde" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "meide" or "müde" show up more?
"müde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,604 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.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "müde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,477,523 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meide" and "müde" 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 #1,477,523 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