watersvsyearWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: waters is a unknown, year is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“waters” is an unknown and “year” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#36,115
“waters” frequency rank
#13,524
“year” frequency rank
49639
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature waters year
Definition Plural des Substantives water eine Dauer von 365 Tagen; Jahr

Letter map: waters vs year

Shared letters muted; letters that set waters and year apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

6 ch
waters
4 ch
year

Grammar separator: waters vs year

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: waters is anunknown and yearanoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49639, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

waters is recorded at frequency rank #36,115, classified as anunknown, pronounced […]. year is at rank #13,524, 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 49639, this pair ranks #1,203,874 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of waters vs year

Shared letters: aer. Private to "waters": stw. Private to "year": y.

"waters" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "year" · 4 letters · shape VVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • watersawters · waetrs · waterrs · waterss · watesr · watres · watters · wtaers
  • yeareyar · yaer · yearr · yera · yyear

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "waters" and "year" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "waters" is an unknown and "year" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "waters" or "year" show up more?
"year" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #13,524 in our German list, against #36,115 for "waters". 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 "waters" and "year".

  • Full dictionary entry for "waters" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "year" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,203,874 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "waters" and "year" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs waters". 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 #1,203,874 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