SeilervsselberWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Seiler is a noun, selber is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Seiler” is a noun and “selber” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#29,780
“Seiler” frequency rank
#756
“selber” frequency rank
30536
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Seiler selber
Definition Handwerker, der Seile herstellt persönlich

Where the eye mixes Seiler and selber

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Seiler
6 ch
selber

Look-alike desk: Seiler vs selber

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Seiler is [ˈzaɪ̯lɐ] while selber is [ˈzɛlbɐ]. 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 pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30536, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Seiler is recorded at frequency rank #29,780, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈzaɪ̯lɐ]. selber is at rank #756, tagged as apron, pronounced [ˈzɛlbɐ].

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 30536, this pair ranks #1,745,919 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Seiler vs selber

Shared letters: elrs. Private to "Seiler": i. Private to "selber": b.

"Seiler" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "selber" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Seileresiler · seielr · seilerr · seiller · seilre · selier · sieler · sseiler
  • selbereslber · sebler · selbber · selberr · selbre · selebr · sellber · sleber

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Seiler" and "selber" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Seiler" is a noun and "selber" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Seiler" or "selber" show up more?
"selber" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #756 in our German list, against #29,780 for "Seiler". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Seiler" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "selber" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,745,919 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Seiler" and "selber" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Seiler 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 #1,745,919 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