pievspisteTell them apart

Which to use

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

#24,870
“pie” frequency rank
#17,679
“piste” frequency rank
42549
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature pie piste
Definition ein herzhaftes oder würziges Gebäck, wie beispielsweise eine Pastete Punkt

Where the eye mixes pie and piste

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

3 ch
pie
5 ch
piste

Visual trap between pie and piste

A purely visual mix-up. pie ([paɪ]) and piste ([ˈpiste]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42549, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

pie is recorded at frequency rank #24,870, classified as anoun, pronounced [paɪ]. piste is at rank #17,679, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpiste].

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 42549, this pair ranks #1,445,943 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of pie vs piste

Shared letters: eip. Private to "pie": -. Private to "piste": st.

"pie" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "piste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • pisteipste · piset · pisste · pistte · pitse · ppiste · psite

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "pie" for "piste" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([paɪ] versus [ˈpiste]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "pie" or "piste" show up more?
"piste" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,679 in our German list, against #24,870 for "pie". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "pie" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "piste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,445,943 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "pie" and "piste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "pie vs PMS". 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 #1,445,943 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