plantsvsspielsTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#49,962
“plants” frequency rank
#5,427
“spiels” frequency rank
55389
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature plants spiels
Definition Plural des Substantivs plant 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs spiel

Letter map: plants vs spiels

Shared letters muted; letters that set plants and spiels apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. plants (CCVCCC) and spiels (CCVVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
plants
6 ch
spiels

Part-of-speech tell for plants / spiels

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: plants is anoun and spielsaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55389, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

plants is recorded at frequency rank #49,962, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. spiels is at rank #5,427, tagged as averb, 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 55389, this pair ranks #981,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of plants vs spiels

Shared letters: lps. Private to "plants": ant. Private to "spiels": ei.

"plants" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC  ·  "spiels" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • plants ← lpants · palnts · plannts · plantss · plantts · platns · pllants · plnats
  • spiels ← psiels · sipels · speils · spiells · spielss · spiesl · spiles · sppiels

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "plants" for "spiels" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "plants" is a noun and "spiels" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "plants" or "spiels" show up more?
"spiels" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,427 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

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "plants" and "spiels".

  • Full dictionary entry for "plants" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "spiels" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #981,484 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "plants" and "spiels" 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 #981,484 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