StundevsSündeWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#724
“Stunde” frequency rank
#7,996
“Sünde” frequency rank
8720
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Stunde Sünde
Definition Zeiteinheit, entspricht dem 24. Teil eines Tages Übertretung eines religiösen Gebotes oder Verbotes

Where the eye mixes Stunde and Sünde

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

6 ch
Stunde
5 ch
Sünde

Why the eye confuses Stunde with Sünde

A purely visual mix-up. Stunde ([ˈʃtʊndə]) and Sünde ([ˈzʏndə]) 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 8720, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Stunde is recorded at frequency rank #724, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtʊndə]. Sünde is at rank #7,996, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈzʏndə].

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 8720, this pair ranks #1,983,119 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Stunde vs Sünde

Shared letters: dens. Private to "Stunde": tu. Private to "Sünde": ü.

"Stunde" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "Sünde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Stundesstunde · stnude · sttunde · studne · stundde · stuned · stunnde · sutnde

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Stunde" for "Sünde" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈʃtʊndə] versus [ˈzʏndə]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "Stunde" or "Sünde"?
"Stunde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #724 in our German list, against #7,996 for "Sünde". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Stunde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Sünde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,983,119 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Stunde" and "Sünde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Sönke vs Sünde". 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 #1,983,119 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