seifenvsseinerWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: seifen is a verb, seiner is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seifen” is a verb and “seiner” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,763
“seifen” frequency rank
#142
“seiner” frequency rank
32905
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seifen seiner
Definition mit Reinigungsmittel/Seife bearbeiten und dadurch säubern Genitiv des Personalpronomens er

Where the eye mixes seifen and seiner

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
seifen
6 ch
seiner

Look-alike desk: seifen vs seiner

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: seifen is [ˈzaɪ̯fn̩] while seiner is [ˈzaɪ̯nɐ]. 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 (verb vs unknown), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32905, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seifen is recorded at frequency rank #32,763, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈzaɪ̯fn̩]. seiner is at rank #142, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [ˈzaɪ̯nɐ].

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 32905, this pair ranks #1,697,521 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of seifen vs seiner

Shared letters: eins. Private to "seifen": f. Private to "seiner": r.

"seifen" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "seiner" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seifenesifen · sefien · seiefn · seifenn · seiffen · seifne · siefen · sseifen
  • seineresiner · seienr · seinerr · seinner · seinre · senier · siener · sseiner

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seifen" and "seiner" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seifen" is a verb and "seiner" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "seifen" or "seiner"?
"seiner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #142 in our German list, against #32,763 for "seifen". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "seifen" and "seiner" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "seifen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "seiner" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,697,521 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seifen" and "seiner" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "seifen vs Stilen". 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 #1,697,521 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