tinevstinyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tine is a noun, tiny is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“tine” is a noun and “tiny” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,303
“tine” frequency rank
#33,341
“tiny” frequency rank
82644
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tine tiny
Definition Feuer winzig

Letter map: tine vs tiny

Shared letters muted; letters that set tine and tiny apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. tine and tiny follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
tine
4 ch
tiny

Grammar separator: tine vs tiny

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tine is anoun and tinyanadjective. On the page they differ by a single letter - e in “tine” becomes y in “tiny”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 82644, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tine is recorded at frequency rank #49,303, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. tiny is at rank #33,341, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈtaɪnɪ].

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 82644, this pair ranks #153,530 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of tine vs tiny

Shared letters: int. Private to "tine": e. Private to "tiny": y.

"tine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "tiny" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tine ← itne · tien · tinne · tnie · ttine
  • tiny ← itny · tinny · tinyy · tiyn · tniy · ttiny

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "tine" and "tiny" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tine" is a noun and "tiny" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "tine" or "tiny" show up more?
"tiny" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,341 in our German list, against #49,303 for "tine". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "tine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tiny" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #153,530 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tine" and "tiny" 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 #153,530 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