temps vs tops, What's the Difference?

Which to use

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

#37,813
“temps” frequency rank: #31,825
“tops” frequency rank: 69638
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	temps	tops
Definition	3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs temp	Plural des Substantivs top

Letter map: temps vs tops

Shared letters muted; letters that set temps and tops apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch

temps

4 ch

tops

Part-of-speech tell for temps / tops

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: temps is averb and topsanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69638, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

temps is recorded at frequency rank #37,813, classified as averb, pronounced […]. tops is at rank #31,825, tagged as anoun, 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 69638, this pair ranks #470,477 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of temps vs tops

Shared letters: pst. Private to "temps": em. Private to "tops": o.

"temps" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC · "tops" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

temps ← etmps · temmps · tempps · tempss · temsp · tepms · tmeps · ttemps
tops ← otps · topps · topss · tosp · tpos · ttops

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "temps" for "tops" ever safe?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "temps" is a verb and "tops" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Frequency check: "temps" vs "tops" - which ranks higher?

"tops" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,825 in our German list, against #37,813 for "temps". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

Full dictionary entry for "temps" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
Full dictionary entry for "tops" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
This pair ranks #470,477 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
"temps" and "tops" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs temps". 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 #470,477 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.