openingvssedWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: opening is a verb, sed is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“opening” is a verb and “sed” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,228
“opening” frequency rank
#5,221
“sed” frequency rank
35449
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature opening sed
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs open aber, wobei, sondern; jedoch

Letter map: opening vs sed

Shared letters muted; letters that set opening and sed apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

7 ch
opening
3 ch
sed

Grammar separator: opening vs sed

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: opening is averb and sedaconjunction. On the page they differ by 4 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35449, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

opening is recorded at frequency rank #30,228, classified as averb, pronounced […]. sed is at rank #5,221, tagged as aconj, 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 35449, this pair ranks #1,639,726 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of opening vs sed

Shared letters: e. Private to "opening": ginop. Private to "sed": ds.

"opening" · 7 letters · shape VCVCVCC  ·  "sed" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • openingoepning · opeinng · openign · openingg · openinng · opennig · openning · opneing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "opening" for "sed" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "opening" is a verb and "sed" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "opening" vs "sed" - which ranks higher?
"sed" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,221 in our German list, against #30,228 for "opening". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "opening" and "sed".

  • Full dictionary entry for "opening" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sed" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,639,726 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "opening" and "sed" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "opening 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 #1,639,726 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