SeilenvssenkenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#27,053
“Seilen” frequency rank
#5,879
“senken” frequency rank
32932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Seilen senken
Definition Dativ Plural des Substantivs Seil in eine niedrigere Position bringen

Where the eye mixes Seilen and senken

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Seilen (CVVCVC) and senken (CVCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
Seilen
6 ch
senken

Visual trap between Seilen and senken

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Seilen is [ˈzaɪ̯lən] while senken is [ˈzɛŋkn̩]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Seilen is recorded at frequency rank #27,053, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈzaɪ̯lən]. senken is at rank #5,879, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈzɛŋkn̩].

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 32932, this pair ranks #1,696,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Seilen vs senken

Shared letters: ens. Private to "Seilen": il. Private to "senken": k.

"Seilen" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "senken" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Seilen ← esilen · seieln · seilenn · seillen · seilne · selien · sielen · sseilen
  • senken ← esnken · seknen · senekn · senkenn · senkken · senkne · sennken · sneken

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Seilen" for "senken" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Seilen" is a noun and "senken" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Seilen" or "senken"?
"senken" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,879 in our German list, against #27,053 for "Seilen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Seilen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "senken" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,696,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Seilen" and "senken" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seilen 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 #1,696,985 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