teintvsthingWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#31,298
“teint” frequency rank
#18,088
“thing” frequency rank
49386
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature teint thing
Definition Gesichtsfarbe, Teint ein materielles Objekt, ohne Bewusstsein

Where the eye mixes teint and thing

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
teint
5 ch
thing

Why the eye confuses teint with thing

A purely visual mix-up. teint ([tɛ̃]) and thing ([θɪŋ]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49386, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

teint is recorded at frequency rank #31,298, classified as anoun, pronounced [tɛ̃]. thing is at rank #18,088, tagged as anoun, pronounced [θɪŋ].

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 49386, this pair ranks #1,213,462 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of teint vs thing

Shared letters: int. Private to "teint": e. Private to "thing": gh.

"teint" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "thing" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teintetint · teinnt · teintt · teitn · tenit · tient · tteint
  • thinghting · thhing · thign · thingg · thinng · thnig · tihng · tthing

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "teint" for "thing" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([tɛ̃] versus [θɪŋ]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "teint" or "thing" show up more?
"thing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,088 in our German list, against #31,298 for "teint". 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 "teint" and "thing" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "teint" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,213,462 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "teint" and "thing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "teint 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 #1,213,462 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