seinsvssiesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: seins is a unknown, sies is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#15,475
“seins” frequency rank
#40,209
“sies” frequency rank
55684
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature seins sies
Definition Nominativ Singular Neutrum bei nicht attributivem Gebrauch des Possessivpronomens sein archaisch: 2. Person Singular Konjunktiv Präsens Aktiv des Verbs esse

Letter map: seins vs sies

Shared letters muted; letters that set seins and sies apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. seins runs 5 letters (CVVCC) against sies's 4 (CVVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
seins
4 ch
sies

Part-of-speech tell for seins / sies

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: seins is anunknown and siesaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55684, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

seins is recorded at frequency rank #15,475, classified as anunknown, pronounced [zaɪ̯ns]. sies is at rank #40,209, tagged as averb, 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 55684, this pair ranks #969,943 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of seins vs sies

Shared letters: eis. Private to "seins": n. Private to "sies": -.

"seins" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "sies" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seins ← esins · seinns · seinss · seisn · senis · siens · sseins
  • sies ← seis · siess · sise · ssies

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "seins" and "sies" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "seins" is an unknown and "sies" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "seins" or "sies" show up more?
"seins" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,475 in our German list, against #40,209 for "sies". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "seins" vs "sies" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "seins" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sies" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #969,943 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "seins" and "sies" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sies". 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 #969,943 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