painvsPlanWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“pain” and “Plan” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#23,652
“pain” frequency rank
#1,167
“Plan” frequency rank
24819
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pain Plan
Definition Schmerz ein durchdachtes Vorhaben, eine Idee oder Vorstellung einer Vorgehensweise

Where the eye mixes pain and Plan

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
pain
4 ch
Plan

Look-alike desk: pain vs Plan

A purely visual mix-up. pain ([peɪn]) and Plan ([plaːn]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24819, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pain is recorded at frequency rank #23,652, classified as anoun, pronounced [peɪn]. Plan is at rank #1,167, tagged as anoun, pronounced [plaːn].

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 24819, this pair ranks #1,842,270 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of pain vs Plan

Shared letters: anp. Private to "pain": i. Private to "Plan": l.

"pain" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Plan" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • painapin · painn · pani · pian · ppain
  • Planlpan · paln · plann · pllan · plna · pplan

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pain" for "Plan" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([peɪn] versus [plaːn]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "pain" or "Plan" show up more?
"Plan" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,167 in our German list, against #23,652 for "pain". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "pain" and "Plan" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Plan" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,842,270 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pain" and "Plan" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pain vs Pau". 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 #1,842,270 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