TeilvsTillTell them apart

Quick tell: Teil is a noun, Till is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Teil” is a noun and “Till” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#238
“Teil” frequency rank
#12,807
“Till” frequency rank
13045
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Teil Till
Definition ein Element, Stück oder Teilmenge eines Ganzen männlicher Vorname

Where the eye mixes Teil and Till

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Teil (CVVC) and Till (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
Teil
4 ch
Till

Visual trap between Teil and Till

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Teil is [taɪ̯l] while Till is [tɪl]. 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 (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13045, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Teil is recorded at frequency rank #238, classified as anoun, pronounced [taɪ̯l]. Till is at rank #12,807, tagged as aname, pronounced [tɪl].

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 13045, this pair ranks #1,960,461 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Teil vs Till

Shared letters: ilt. Private to "Teil": e. Private to "Till": -.

"Teil" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "Till" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Teil ← etil · teill · teli · tiel · tteil
  • Till ← itll · tlil · ttill

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Teil" and "Till" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Teil" is a noun and "Till" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Teil" or "Till" show up more?
"Teil" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #238 in our German list, against #12,807 for "Till". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Teil" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Till" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,960,461 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Teil" and "Till" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Till vs tine". 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 #1,960,461 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