skillvsskillsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#26,171
“skill” frequency rank
#16,548
“skills” frequency rank
42719
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature skill skills
Definition die Fähigkeit, etwas mit Sachverstand und Können zu tun, speziell durch Übung und Erfahrung Plural des Substantivs skill

Letter map: skill vs skills

Shared letters muted; letters that set skill and skills apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

5 ch
skill
6 ch
skills

Spelling & dictionary notes on skill vs skills

skill and skills 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 extra letter(s) - “skill” sits inside “skills”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42719, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

skill is recorded at frequency rank #26,171, classified as anoun, pronounced [skɪl]. skills is at rank #16,548, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 42719, this pair ranks #1,440,690 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of skill vs skills

Shared letters: ikls. Private to "skill": -. Private to "skills": -.

"skill" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "skills" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • skillksill · sikll · skil · skkill · sklil · sskill
  • skillsksills · siklls · skillss · skils · skilsl · skkills · sklils · sskills

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "skill" and "skills" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “skill” sits inside “skills”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "skill" or "skills" show up more?
"skills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,548 in our German list, against #26,171 for "skill". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

You've compared "skill" and "skills". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "skill" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "skills" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,440,690 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "skill" and "skills" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sil vs skill". 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 #1,440,690 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