sealvssegConfusable pair

Quick tell: seal is a verb, seg is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seal” is a verb and “seg” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,260
“seal” frequency rank
#49,245
“seg” frequency rank
81505
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seal seg
Definition dichten, abdichten sich

Letter map: seal vs seg

Shared letters muted; letters that set seal and seg apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. seal runs 4 letters (CVVC) against seg's 3 (CVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
seal
3 ch
seg

Part-of-speech tell for seal / seg

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seal is averb and segapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81505, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seal is recorded at frequency rank #32,260, classified as averb, pronounced [siːl]. seg is at rank #49,245, tagged as apron, 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 81505, this pair ranks #174,526 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of seal vs seg

Shared letters: es. Private to "seal": al. Private to "seg": g.

"seal" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "seg" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seal ← esal · seall · sela · sseal

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "seal" and "seg" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seal" is a verb and "seg" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "seal" or "seg" show up more?
"seal" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,260 in our German list, against #49,245 for "seg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "seal" and "seg".

  • Full dictionary entry for "seal" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "seg" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #174,526 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seal" and "seg" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs seg". 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 #174,526 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