seinesvsSteinersWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: seines is a unknown, Steiners is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“seines” is an unknown and “Steiners” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#623
“seines” frequency rank
#47,023
“Steiners” frequency rank
47646
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seines Steiners
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum und Neutrum des Possessivpronomens sein Genitiv Singular des Substantivs Steiner

Where the eye mixes seines and Steiners

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. seines runs 6 letters (CVVCVC) against Steiners's 8 (CCVVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
seines
8 ch
Steiners

Look-alike desk: seines vs Steiners

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: seines is [ˈzaɪ̯nəs] while Steiners is [ˈʃtaɪ̯nɐs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (unknown vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47646, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seines is recorded at frequency rank #623, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈzaɪ̯nəs]. Steiners is at rank #47,023, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtaɪ̯nɐs].

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 47646, this pair ranks #1,277,010 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seines vs Steiners

Shared letters: eins. Private to "seines": -. Private to "Steiners": rt.

"seines" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "Steiners" · 8 letters · shape CCVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seines ← esines · seiens · seiness · seinnes · seinse · senies · sienes · sseines
  • Steiners ← setiners · ssteiners · steienrs · steinerrs · steinerss · steinesr · steinners · steinres

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "seines" and "Steiners" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seines" is an unknown and "Steiners" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "seines" or "Steiners" show up more?
"seines" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #623 in our German list, against #47,023 for "Steiners". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "seines" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Steiners" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,277,010 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seines" and "Steiners" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "steiler vs Steiners". 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 #1,277,010 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