tinevstrinkeWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: tine is a noun, trinke is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,303
“tine” frequency rank
#6,732
“trinke” frequency rank
56035
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature tine trinke
Definition Feuer 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs trinken

Letter map: tine vs trinke

Shared letters muted; letters that set tine and trinke apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. tine runs 4 letters (CVCV) against trinke's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
tine
6 ch
trinke

Part-of-speech tell for tine / trinke

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: tine is anoun and trinkeaverb. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56035, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

tine is recorded at frequency rank #49,303, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. trinke is at rank #6,732, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈtʁɪŋkə].

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 56035, this pair ranks #956,169 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of tine vs trinke

Shared letters: eint. Private to "tine": -. Private to "trinke": kr.

"tine" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "trinke" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tine ← itne · tien · tinne · tnie · ttine
  • trinke ← rtinke · tirnke · trikne · trinek · trinkke · trinnke · trnike · trrinke

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "tine" and "trinke" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "tine" is a noun and "trinke" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "tine" or "trinke" show up more?
"trinke" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,732 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

Pair "tine" vs "trinke" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "tine" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "trinke" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #956,169 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "tine" and "trinke" 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 #956,169 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