premiervspremiumConfusable pair

Quick tell: premier is a num, premium is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“premier” is a num and “premium” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,377
“premier” frequency rank
#5,409
“premium” frequency rank
12786
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature premier premium
Definition erste, erster, erstes von bester Qualität

Where the eye mixes premier and premium

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

7 ch
premier
7 ch
premium

Why the eye confuses premier with premium

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: premier is [pʁə.mje] while premium is [ˈpʁeːmi̯ʊm]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (num vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12786, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

premier is recorded at frequency rank #7,377, classified as anum, pronounced [pʁə.mje]. premium is at rank #5,409, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈpʁeːmi̯ʊm].

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 12786, this pair ranks #1,962,060 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of premier vs premium

Shared letters: eimpr. Private to "premier": -. Private to "premium": u.

"premier" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC  ·  "premium" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • premierpermier · ppremier · preimer · premeir · premierr · premire · premmier · prmeier
  • premiumpermium · ppremium · preimum · premimu · premiumm · premmium · premuim · prmeium

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "premier" and "premium" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "premier" is a num and "premium" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "premier" vs "premium" - which ranks higher?
"premium" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,409 in our German list, against #7,377 for "premier". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "premier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "premium" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,962,060 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "premier" and "premium" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "premier vs Premieren". 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 #1,962,060 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