TiefevstineWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#2,619
“Tiefe” frequency rank
#49,303
“tine” frequency rank
51922
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Tiefe tine
Definition Abstand/Erstreckung in der Senkrechten nach unten Feuer

Letter map: Tiefe vs tine

Shared letters muted; letters that set Tiefe and tine apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. Tiefe runs 5 letters (CVVCV) against tine's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Tiefe
4 ch
tine

Pair insight - Tiefe / tine

Tiefe and tine are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51922, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Tiefe is recorded at frequency rank #2,619, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈtiːfə]. tine is at rank #49,303, 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 51922, this pair ranks #1,116,830 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Tiefe vs tine

Shared letters: eit. Private to "Tiefe": f. Private to "tine": n.

"Tiefe" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "tine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Tiefe ← itefe · teife · tieef · tieffe · tifee · ttiefe
  • tine ← itne · tien · tinne · tnie · ttine

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Tiefe" for "tine" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "Tiefe" or "tine" show up more?
"Tiefe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,619 in our German list, against #49,303 for "tine". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Tiefe" and "tine".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Tiefe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,116,830 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Tiefe" and "tine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles 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 #1,116,830 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