meinevsmeistWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: meine is a unknown, meist is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“meine” is an unknown and “meist” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#106
“meine” frequency rank
#620
“meist” frequency rank
726
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature meine meist
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum des Possessivpronomens mein Superlativ zu viel

Where the eye mixes meine and meist

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

5 ch
meine
5 ch
meist

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: meine is [ˈmaɪ̯nə] while meist is [maɪ̯st]. 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 (unknown vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 726, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

meine is recorded at frequency rank #106, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈmaɪ̯nə]. meist is at rank #620, tagged as anadj, pronounced [maɪ̯st].

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 726, this pair ranks #2,005,443 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of meine vs meist

Shared letters: eim. Private to "meine": n. Private to "meist": st.

"meine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "meist" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • meineemine · meien · meinne · menie · mmeine
  • meistemist · meisst · meistt · meits · mesit · miest · mmeist

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "meine" and "meist" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "meine" is an unknown and "meist" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "meine" or "meist"?
"meine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #106 in our German list, against #620 for "meist". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "meine" and "meist". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "meine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "meist" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #2,005,443 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "meine" and "meist" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "meine 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list