tablevstabsWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#21,788
“table” frequency rank
#31,815
“tabs” frequency rank
53603
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature table tabs
Definition Tisch 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs tab

Letter map: table vs tabs

Shared letters muted; letters that set table and tabs apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
table
4 ch
tabs

Part-of-speech tell for table / tabs

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: table is anoun and tabsaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53603, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

table is recorded at frequency rank #21,788, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈteɪbl]. tabs is at rank #31,815, 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 53603, this pair ranks #1,051,536 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of table vs tabs

Shared letters: abt. Private to "table": el. Private to "tabs": s.

"table" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "tabs" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tableatble · tabble · tabel · tablle · talbe · tbale · ttable
  • tabsatbs · tabbs · tabss · tasb · tbas · ttabs

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "table" and "tabs" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "table" is a noun and "tabs" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "table" or "tabs" show up more?
"table" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,788 in our German list, against #31,815 for "tabs". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "table" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tabs" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,051,536 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "table" and "tabs" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs tabs". 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 #1,051,536 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