missingvsMissionWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: missing is a verb, Mission is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“missing” is a verb and “Mission” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#43,357
“missing” frequency rank
#2,310
“Mission” frequency rank
45667
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature missing Mission
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs miss bedeutsame/r Aufgabe/Auftrag

Letter map: missing vs Mission

Shared letters muted; letters that set missing and Mission apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

7 ch
missing
7 ch
Mission

Part-of-speech tell for missing / Mission

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: missing is averb and Missionanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45667, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

missing is recorded at frequency rank #43,357, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Mission is at rank #2,310, tagged as anoun, pronounced [mɪˈsi̯oːn].

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 45667, this pair ranks #1,345,206 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of missing vs Mission

Shared letters: imns. Private to "missing": g. Private to "Mission": o.

"missing" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "Mission" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • missingimssing · mising · misisng · missign · missingg · missinng · missnig · mißing
  • Missionimssion · mision · misison · missino · missionn · missoin · mißion · mmission

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "missing" and "Mission" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "missing" is a verb and "Mission" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "missing" or "Mission" show up more?
"Mission" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,310 in our German list, against #43,357 for "missing". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "missing" and "Mission".

  • Full dictionary entry for "missing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Mission" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,345,206 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "missing" and "Mission" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "missing vs puzzles". 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 #1,345,206 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