uglyvsUlfTell them apart

Quick tell: ugly is a adjective, Ulf is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ugly” is an adjective and “Ulf” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#49,317
“ugly” frequency rank
#18,408
“Ulf” frequency rank
67725
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ugly Ulf
Definition unangenehm für das Auge; nicht ästhetisch ansprechend männlicher Vorname

Letter map: ugly vs Ulf

Shared letters muted; letters that set ugly and Ulf apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ugly runs 4 letters (VCCV) against Ulf's 3 (VCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
ugly
3 ch
Ulf

Grammar separator: ugly vs Ulf

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ugly is anadjective and Ulfaname. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67725, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ugly is recorded at frequency rank #49,317, classified as anadj, pronounced [ʌɡli]. Ulf is at rank #18,408, tagged as aname, 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 67725, this pair ranks #530,725 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ugly vs Ulf

Shared letters: lu. Private to "ugly": gy. Private to "Ulf": f.

"ugly" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "Ulf" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ugly ← guly · uggly · uglly · uglyy · ugyl · ulgy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ugly" and "Ulf" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ugly" is an adjective and "Ulf" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "ugly" or "Ulf" show up more?
"Ulf" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,408 in our German list, against #49,317 for "ugly". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ugly" and "Ulf". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ugly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Ulf" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #530,725 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ugly" and "Ulf" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ugly vs ulli". 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 #530,725 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