paidvsplantsWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#44,122
“paid” frequency rank
#49,962
“plants” frequency rank
94084
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paid plants
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs pay Plural des Substantivs plant

Letter map: paid vs plants

Shared letters muted; letters that set paid and plants apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. paid runs 4 letters (CVVC) against plants's 6 (CCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
paid
6 ch
plants

Role in the sentence - paid and plants

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paid is averb and plantsanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 94084, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paid is recorded at frequency rank #44,122, classified as averb, pronounced […]. plants is at rank #49,962, tagged as anoun, 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 94084, this pair ranks #18,760 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of paid vs plants

Shared letters: ap. Private to "paid": di. Private to "plants": lnst.

"paid" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "plants" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paid ← apid · padi · paidd · ppaid
  • plants ← lpants · palnts · plannts · plantss · plantts · platns · pllants · plnats

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "paid" and "plants" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paid" is a verb and "plants" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "paid" or "plants" show up more?
"paid" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #44,122 in our German list, against #49,962 for "plants". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "paid" vs "plants" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paid" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "plants" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #18,760 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paid" and "plants" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "plants 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 #18,760 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