residencevsrunningWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#42,763
“residence” frequency rank
#15,470
“running” frequency rank
58233
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature residence running
Definition Wohnort, Wohnsitz, Residenz Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs run

Letter map: residence vs running

Shared letters muted; letters that set residence and running apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. residence runs 9 letters (CVCVCVCCV) against running's 7 (CVCCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
residence
7 ch
running

Part-of-speech tell for residence / running

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: residence is anoun and runningaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 58233, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

residence is recorded at frequency rank #42,763, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. running is at rank #15,470, 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 58233, this pair ranks #870,682 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of residence vs running

Shared letters: inr. Private to "residence": cdes. Private to "running": gu.

"residence" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCVCCV  ·  "running" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • residenceersidence · reisdence · resdience · residdence · residecne · residencce · residenec · residennce
  • runningrnuning · rrunning · runing · runinng · runnign · runningg · runninng · runnnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "residence" and "running" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "residence" is a noun and "running" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "residence" or "running" show up more?
"running" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,470 in our German list, against #42,763 for "residence". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "residence" vs "running" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "residence" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "running" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #870,682 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "residence" and "running" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs residence". 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 #870,682 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