staffvsSuffTell them apart

Which to use

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

#32,780
“staff” frequency rank
#42,164
“Suff” frequency rank
74944
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature staff Suff
Definition Lehrkörper, Mitarbeiterstab, Personal Trunk- oder Alkoholsucht

Where the eye mixes staff and Suff

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

5 ch
staff
4 ch
Suff

Visual trap between staff and Suff

A purely visual mix-up. staff ([stɑːf]) and Suff ([zʊf]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74944, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

staff is recorded at frequency rank #32,780, classified as anoun, pronounced [stɑːf]. Suff is at rank #42,164, tagged as anoun, pronounced [zʊf].

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 74944, this pair ranks #320,413 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of staff vs Suff

Shared letters: fs. Private to "staff": at. Private to "Suff": u.

"staff" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "Suff" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • staffsatff · sstaff · staf · stfaf · sttaff · tsaff
  • Suffsfuf · ssuff · suf · usff

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "staff" and "Suff" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([stɑːf] versus [zʊf]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "staff" vs "Suff" - which ranks higher?
"staff" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,780 in our German list, against #42,164 for "Suff". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "staff" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Suff" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #320,413 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "staff" and "Suff" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Suff vs surft". 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 #320,413 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