skillsvsskullTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#16,548
“skills” frequency rank
#47,731
“skull” frequency rank
64279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature skills skull
Definition Plural des Substantivs skill 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs skullen

Letter map: skills vs skull

Shared letters muted; letters that set skills and skull apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. skills runs 6 letters (CCVCCC) against skull's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
skills
5 ch
skull

Role in the sentence - skills and skull

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: skills is anoun and skullaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

skills is recorded at frequency rank #16,548, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. skull is at rank #47,731, tagged as averb, pronounced [skʊl].

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 64279, this pair ranks #647,204 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of skills vs skull

Shared letters: kls. Private to "skills": i. Private to "skull": u.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • skills ← ksills · siklls · skillss · skils · skilsl · skkills · sklils · sskills
  • skull ← ksull · skkull · sklul · skul · sskull · sukll

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "skills" and "skull" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "skills" is a noun and "skull" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "skills" or "skull"?
"skills" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,548 in our German list, against #47,731 for "skull". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "skills" vs "skull" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "skills" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "skull" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #647,204 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "skills" and "skull" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "skull vs Sulz". 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 #647,204 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