uglyvsulliWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ugly is a adjective, ulli is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,317
“ugly” frequency rank
#32,322
“ulli” frequency rank
81639
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ugly ulli
Definition unangenehm für das Auge; nicht ästhetisch ansprechend Dativ Singular des Indefinitpronomens ullus

Letter map: ugly vs ulli

Shared letters muted; letters that set ugly and ulli apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. ugly and ulli follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

4 ch
ugly
4 ch
ulli

Grammar separator: ugly vs ulli

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: ugly is anadjective and ullianunknown. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81639, 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]. ulli is at rank #32,322, tagged as anunknown, 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 81639, this pair ranks #171,956 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of ugly vs ulli

Shared letters: lu. Private to "ugly": gy. Private to "ulli": i.

"ugly" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "ulli" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ugly ← guly · uggly · uglly · uglyy · ugyl · ulgy
  • ulli ← luli · uli · ulil

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "ugly" and "ulli" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ugly" is an adjective and "ulli" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "ugly" or "ulli"?
"ulli" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,322 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 "ulli". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ugly" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ulli" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #171,956 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ugly" and "ulli" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles 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 #171,956 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