obsessionvssinglesWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#38,319
“obsession” frequency rank
#3,773
“singles” frequency rank
42092
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature obsession singles
Definition die Besessenheit 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs single

Letter map: obsession vs singles

Shared letters muted; letters that set obsession and singles apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

9 ch
obsession
7 ch
singles

Part-of-speech tell for obsession / singles

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: obsession is anoun and singlesaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42092, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

obsession is recorded at frequency rank #38,319, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. singles is at rank #3,773, 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 42092, this pair ranks #1,459,801 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of obsession vs singles

Shared letters: eins. Private to "obsession": bo. Private to "singles": gl.

"obsession" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCCVVC  ·  "singles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • obsessionbosession · obbsession · obesssion · obsesion · obsesison · obsessino · obsessionn · obsessoin
  • singlesisngles · signles · singels · singgles · singless · singlles · singlse · sinlges

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "obsession" and "singles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "obsession" is a noun and "singles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "obsession" or "singles"?
"singles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,773 in our German list, against #38,319 for "obsession". 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 "obsession" and "singles".

  • Full dictionary entry for "obsession" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "singles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,459,801 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "obsession" and "singles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "obsession 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 #1,459,801 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