PisvspriusTell them apart

Quick tell: Pis is a noun, prius is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Pis” is a noun and “prius” is an adverb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#38,949
“Pis” frequency rank
#44,857
“prius” frequency rank
83806
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Pis prius
Definition Genitiv Singular des Substantivs Pi eher, vorher, früher, zuvor

Letter map: Pis vs prius

Shared letters muted; letters that set Pis and prius apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Pis runs 3 letters (CVC) against prius's 5 (CCVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Pis
5 ch
prius

Grammar separator: Pis vs prius

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Pis is anoun and priusanadverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 83806, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Pis is recorded at frequency rank #38,949, classified as anoun, pronounced [piːs]. prius is at rank #44,857, tagged as anadv.

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 83806, this pair ranks #133,836 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Pis vs prius

Shared letters: ips. Private to "Pis": -. Private to "prius": ru.

"Pis" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "prius" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • prius ← pirus · pprius · prisu · priuss · prrius · pruis · rpius

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Pis" and "prius" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Pis" is a noun and "prius" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Pis" or "prius" show up more?
"Pis" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38,949 in our German list, against #44,857 for "prius". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Pis" vs "prius" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Pis" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prius" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #133,836 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Pis" and "prius" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "prius vs pros". 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 #133,836 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