seriousvssinglesConfusable pair

Quick tell: serious is a adjective, singles is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“serious” is an adjective and “singles” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,840
“serious” frequency rank
#3,773
“singles” frequency rank
44613
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature serious singles
Definition ernst 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs single

Letter map: serious vs singles

Shared letters muted; letters that set serious and singles apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

7 ch
serious
7 ch
singles

Grammar separator: serious vs singles

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: serious is anadjective and singlesaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 5 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44613, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

serious is recorded at frequency rank #40,840, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. singles is at rank #3,773, 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 44613, this pair ranks #1,380,500 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of serious vs singles

Shared letters: eis. Private to "serious": oru. Private to "singles": gln.

"serious" · 7 letters · shape CVCVVVC  ·  "singles" · 7 letters · shape CVCCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • seriousesrious · seirous · seriosu · seriouss · seriuos · seroius · serrious · sreious
  • singlesisngles · signles · singels · singgles · singless · singlles · singlse · sinlges

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "serious" and "singles" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "serious" is an adjective and "singles" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "serious" or "singles"?
"singles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,773 in our German list, against #40,840 for "serious". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "serious" and "singles".

  • Full dictionary entry for "serious" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "singles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,380,500 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "serious" and "singles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs serious". 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 #1,380,500 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