silvssurTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#48,487
“sil” frequency rank
#7,401
“sur” frequency rank
55888
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sil sur
Definition Küchengerät mit vielen Löschern; Sieb 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs suren

Letter map: sil vs sur

Shared letters muted; letters that set sil and sur apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
sil
3 ch
sur

Part-of-speech tell for sil / sur

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sil is anoun and suraverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55888, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sil is recorded at frequency rank #48,487, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. sur is at rank #7,401, tagged as averb, pronounced [zuːɐ̯].

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 55888, this pair ranks #961,807 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sil vs sur

Shared letters: s. Private to "sil": il. Private to "sur": ru.

"sil" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "sur" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "sil" and "sur" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sil" is a noun and "sur" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "sil" vs "sur" - which ranks higher?
"sur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,401 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

You've compared "sil" and "sur". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sur" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #961,807 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sil" and "sur" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sil". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #961,807 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