silvsskinWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“sil” and “skin” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,487
“sil” frequency rank
#21,064
“skin” frequency rank
69551
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sil skin
Definition Küchengerät mit vielen Löschern; Sieb menschliche Haut

Letter map: sil vs skin

Shared letters muted; letters that set sil and skin apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. sil runs 3 letters (CVC) against skin's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
sil
4 ch
skin

Corpus notes: sil and skin

sil and skin are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69551, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sil is recorded at frequency rank #48,487, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. skin is at rank #21,064, tagged as anoun, pronounced [skɪn].

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 69551, this pair ranks #473,149 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of sil vs skin

Shared letters: is. Private to "sil": l. Private to "skin": kn.

"sil" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "skin" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • skin ← ksin · sikn · skinn · skkin · skni · sskin

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sil" for "skin" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "sil" vs "skin" - which ranks higher?
"skin" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,064 in our German list, against #48,487 for "sil". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "sil" vs "skin" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "skin" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #473,149 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sil" and "skin" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sil". 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 #473,149 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