mervsminWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: mer is a noun, min is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mer” is a noun and “min” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,134
“mer” frequency rank
#1,562
“min” frequency rank
11696
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mer min
Definition das Meer, die See Minute

Letter map: mer vs min

Shared letters muted; letters that set mer and min apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
mer
3 ch
min

Part-of-speech tell for mer / min

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mer is anoun and minanabbrev. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mer is recorded at frequency rank #10,134, classified as anoun, pronounced [mεːʀ]. min is at rank #1,562, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced […].

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 11696, this pair ranks #1,968,432 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of mer vs min

Shared letters: m. Private to "mer": er. Private to "min": in.

"mer" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "min" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "mer" and "min" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mer" is a noun and "min" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "mer" or "min"?
"min" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,562 in our German list, against #10,134 for "mer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "mer" and "min". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "mer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "min" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,968,432 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mer" and "min" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mer vs mora". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,968,432 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