stehlevsStilleWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,045
“stehle” frequency rank
#4,307
“Stille” frequency rank
43352
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stehle Stille
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs stehlen die Abwesenheit von akustischen Signalen wie Lärm, Musik, Geräusch

Where the eye mixes stehle and Stille

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. stehle and Stille follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
stehle
6 ch
Stille

Look-alike desk: stehle vs Stille

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: stehle is [ˈʃteːlə] while Stille is [ˈʃtɪlə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43352, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stehle is recorded at frequency rank #39,045, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈʃteːlə]. Stille is at rank #4,307, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtɪlə].

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 43352, this pair ranks #1,420,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stehle vs Stille

Shared letters: elst. Private to "stehle": h. Private to "Stille": i.

"stehle" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "Stille" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stehle ← sethle · sstehle · stehel · stehhle · stehlle · stelhe · sthele · sttehle
  • Stille ← sitlle · sstille · stilel · stlile · sttille · tsille

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "stehle" and "Stille" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stehle" is a verb and "Stille" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "stehle" or "Stille" show up more?
"Stille" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,307 in our German list, against #39,045 for "stehle". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "stehle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Stille" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,420,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stehle" and "Stille" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stehle vs Stuhls". 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 #1,420,784 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