solidevssowieTell them apart

Quick tell: solide is a adjective, sowie is a conjunction, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“solide” is an adjective and “sowie” is a conjunction - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,454
“solide” frequency rank
#188
“sowie” frequency rank
8642
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature solide sowie
Definition so, dass es dauerhaft Beanspruchungen standhält; widerstandsfähig wie auch, und außerdem, wobei der Fokus auf den folgenden Ausdruck gelegt wird

Where the eye mixes solide and sowie

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
solide
5 ch
sowie

Visual trap between solide and sowie

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: solide is [zoˈliːdə] while sowie is [zoˈviː]. 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 (adjective vs conjunction), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 8642, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

solide is recorded at frequency rank #8,454, classified as anadj, pronounced [zoˈliːdə]. sowie is at rank #188, tagged as aconj, pronounced [zoˈviː].

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 8642, this pair ranks #1,983,468 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of solide vs sowie

Shared letters: eios. Private to "solide": dl. Private to "sowie": w.

"solide" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "sowie" · 5 letters · shape CVCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • solideoslide · sloide · soilde · soldie · solidde · solied · sollide · ssolide
  • sowieoswie · soiwe · sowei · sowwie · ssowie · swoie

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "solide" for "sowie" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "solide" is an adjective and "sowie" a conjunction, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "solide" or "sowie" show up more?
"sowie" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #188 in our German list, against #8,454 for "solide". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "solide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sowie" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,983,468 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "solide" and "sowie" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Soviet vs sowie". 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 #1,983,468 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