ohnevsonsTell them apart

Quick tell: ohne is a preposition, ons is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ohne” is a preposition and “ons” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#111
“ohne” frequency rank
#30,227
“ons” frequency rank
30338
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ohne ons
Definition etwas oder jemanden ausschließend Erste Person plural : unser

Letter map: ohne vs ons

Shared letters muted; letters that set ohne and ons apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ohne runs 4 letters (VCCV) against ons's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ohne
3 ch
ons

Grammar separator: ohne vs ons

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ohne is apreposition and onsapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30338, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ohne is recorded at frequency rank #111, classified as aprep, pronounced [ˈoːnə]. ons is at rank #30,227, tagged as apron.

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 30338, this pair ranks #1,749,844 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ohne vs ons

Shared letters: no. Private to "ohne": eh. Private to "ons": s.

"ohne" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ons" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ohne ← hone · ohen · ohhne · ohnne · onhe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ohne" and "ons" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ohne" is a preposition and "ons" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ohne" or "ons"?
"ohne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #111 in our German list, against #30,227 for "ons". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "ohne" vs "ons" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ohne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ons" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,749,844 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ohne" and "ons" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "OGH vs ons". 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 #1,749,844 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