sehnvssinTell them apart

Quick tell: sehn is a verb, sin is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“sehn” is a verb and “sin” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,016
“sehn” frequency rank
#10,171
“sin” frequency rank
23187
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sehn sin
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs sehnen Sinus

Letter map: sehn vs sin

Shared letters muted; letters that set sehn and sin apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
sehn
3 ch
sin

Part-of-speech tell for sehn / sin

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sehn is averb and sinanabbrev. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 23187, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sehn is recorded at frequency rank #13,016, classified as averb, pronounced [zeːn]. sin is at rank #10,171, tagged as anabbrev, 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 23187, this pair ranks #1,864,622 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sehn vs sin

Shared letters: ns. Private to "sehn": eh. Private to "sin": i.

"sehn" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "sin" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sehneshn · sehhn · sehnn · senh · shen · ssehn

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "sehn" and "sin" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sehn" is a verb and "sin" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "sehn" or "sin" show up more?
"sin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,171 in our German list, against #13,016 for "sehn". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "sehn" and "sin". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sehn" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,864,622 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sehn" and "sin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seg vs sehn". 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 #1,864,622 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