SkiervsstiegWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#46,283
“Skier” frequency rank
#2,920
“stieg” frequency rank
49203
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Skier stieg
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Ski 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs steigen

Where the eye mixes Skier and stieg

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

5 ch
Skier
5 ch
stieg

Visual trap between Skier and stieg

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Skier is [ˈʃiːɐ] while stieg is [ʃtiːk]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49203, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Skier is recorded at frequency rank #46,283, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃiːɐ]. stieg is at rank #2,920, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʃtiːk].

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 49203, this pair ranks #1,220,249 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Skier vs stieg

Shared letters: eis. Private to "Skier": kr. Private to "stieg": gt.

"Skier" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC  ·  "stieg" · 5 letters · shape CCVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Skierksier · siker · skeir · skierr · skire · skkier · sskier
  • stiegsiteg · sstieg · stiegg · stige · sttieg · tsieg

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Skier" for "stieg" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Skier" is a noun and "stieg" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Skier" or "stieg"?
"stieg" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,920 in our German list, against #46,283 for "Skier". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Skier" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stieg" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,220,249 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Skier" and "stieg" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Skier vs sniper". 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 #1,220,249 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