SinnevssoneWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Sinne is a noun, sone is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Sinne” is a noun and “sone” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,122
“Sinne” frequency rank
#33,303
“sone” frequency rank
34425
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Sinne sone
Definition Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Sinn Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Pronomens son

Where the eye mixes Sinne and sone

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

5 ch
Sinne
4 ch
sone

Visual trap between Sinne and sone

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Sinne is [ˈzɪnə] while sone is [ˈzoːnə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs unknown), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34425, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Sinne is recorded at frequency rank #1,122, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈzɪnə]. sone is at rank #33,303, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [ˈzoːnə].

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 34425, this pair ranks #1,663,615 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Sinne vs sone

Shared letters: ens. Private to "Sinne": i. Private to "sone": o.

"Sinne" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "sone" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Sinneisnne · sine · sinen · snine · ssinne
  • soneosne · snoe · soen · ssone

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Sinne" for "sone" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Sinne" is a noun and "sone" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Sinne" or "sone" show up more?
"Sinne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,122 in our German list, against #33,303 for "sone". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "Sinne" and "sone" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Sinne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sone" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,663,615 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Sinne" and "sone" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sonar vs sone". 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 #1,663,615 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