sturvssumWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: stur is a adjective, sum is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“stur” is an adjective and “sum” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#19,408
“stur” frequency rank
#31,289
“sum” frequency rank
50697
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stur sum
Definition durch Argumente kaum oder gar nicht beeinflussbar 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs esse

Letter map: stur vs sum

Shared letters muted; letters that set stur and sum apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
stur
3 ch
sum

Part-of-speech tell for stur / sum

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stur is anadjective and sumaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50697, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stur is recorded at frequency rank #19,408, classified as anadj, pronounced [ʃtuːɐ̯]. sum is at rank #31,289, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 50697, this pair ranks #1,163,933 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stur vs sum

Shared letters: su. Private to "stur": rt. Private to "sum": m.

"stur" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "sum" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stursstur · stru · sttur · sturr · sutr · tsur

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "stur" and "sum" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stur" is an adjective and "sum" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "stur" or "sum"?
"stur" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,408 in our German list, against #31,289 for "sum". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "stur" and "sum". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stur" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "sum" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,163,933 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stur" and "sum" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sum". 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 #1,163,933 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