monkeyvsunitTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#29,246
“monkey” frequency rank
#20,101
“unit” frequency rank
49347
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature monkey unit
Definition der Affe 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs unir

Letter map: monkey vs unit

Shared letters muted; letters that set monkey and unit apart highlighted. Shared run: 1. monkey runs 6 letters (CVCCVV) against unit's 4 (VCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
monkey
4 ch
unit

Grammar separator: monkey vs unit

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: monkey is anoun and unitaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

monkey is recorded at frequency rank #29,246, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. unit is at rank #20,101, tagged as averb, 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 49347, this pair ranks #1,214,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of monkey vs unit

Shared letters: n. Private to "monkey": ekmoy. Private to "unit": itu.

"monkey" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVV  ·  "unit" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • monkeymmonkey · mnokey · mokney · moneky · monkeyy · monkkey · monkye · monnkey
  • unitnuit · uint · unitt · unnit · unti

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "monkey" for "unit" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "monkey" is a noun and "unit" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "monkey" vs "unit" - which ranks higher?
"unit" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,101 in our German list, against #29,246 for "monkey". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "monkey" vs "unit" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "monkey" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "unit" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,214,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "monkey" and "unit" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "monkey 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 #1,214,908 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