siehevsSippeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#800
“siehe” frequency rank
#27,057
“Sippe” frequency rank
27857
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature siehe Sippe
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs sehen Gruppe von Menschen mit gemeinsamer Abstammung, die unter anderem durch Bräuche miteinander verbunden sind

Where the eye mixes siehe and Sippe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
siehe
5 ch
Sippe

Why the eye confuses siehe with Sippe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: siehe is [ˈziːə] while Sippe is [ˈzɪpə]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27857, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

siehe is recorded at frequency rank #800, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈziːə]. Sippe is at rank #27,057, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈzɪpə].

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 27857, this pair ranks #1,794,693 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of siehe vs Sippe

Shared letters: eis. Private to "siehe": h. Private to "Sippe": p.

"siehe" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Sippe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sieheisehe · seihe · sieeh · siehhe · sihee · ssiehe
  • Sippeisppe · sipe · sipep · spipe · ssippe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "siehe" for "Sippe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "siehe" is a verb and "Sippe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "siehe" or "Sippe" show up more?
"siehe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #800 in our German list, against #27,057 for "Sippe". 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 "siehe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Sippe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,794,693 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "siehe" and "Sippe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sippe vs Sire". 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 #1,794,693 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