sportingvsspringWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#47,016
“sporting” frequency rank
#10,369
“spring” frequency rank
57385
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sporting spring
Definition Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs sport 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs springen

Letter map: sporting vs spring

Shared letters muted; letters that set sporting and spring apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

8 ch
sporting
6 ch
spring

Spelling & dictionary notes on sporting vs spring

sporting and spring 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 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57385, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sporting is recorded at frequency rank #47,016, classified as averb, pronounced […]. spring is at rank #10,369, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʃpʁɪŋ].

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 57385, this pair ranks #903,400 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of sporting vs spring

Shared letters: ginprs. Private to "sporting": ot. Private to "spring": -.

"sporting" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC  ·  "spring" · 6 letters · shape CCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sportingpsorting · soprting · sporitng · sporrting · sportign · sportingg · sportinng · sportnig
  • springpsring · spirng · sppring · sprign · springg · sprinng · sprnig · sprring

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sporting" for "spring" ever safe?
No. They differ by 2 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "sporting" vs "spring" - which ranks higher?
"spring" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,369 in our German list, against #47,016 for "sporting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "sporting" vs "spring" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "sporting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "spring" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #903,400 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sporting" and "spring" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sporting". 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 #903,400 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