widevsWindTell them apart

Quick tell: wide is a adjective, Wind is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#20,128
“wide” frequency rank
#1,752
“Wind” frequency rank
21880
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wide Wind
Definition von großer Ausdehnung eine gerichtete Luftbewegung in der Atmosphäre

Where the eye mixes wide and Wind

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
wide
4 ch
Wind

Look-alike desk: wide vs Wind

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wide is [waɪd] while Wind is [vɪnt]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21880, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wide is recorded at frequency rank #20,128, classified as anadj, pronounced [waɪd]. Wind is at rank #1,752, tagged as anoun, pronounced [vɪnt].

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 21880, this pair ranks #1,881,028 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wide vs Wind

Shared letters: diw. Private to "wide": e. Private to "Wind": n.

"wide" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Wind" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wideiwde · wdie · widde · wwide
  • Windiwnd · widn · windd · winnd · wnid · wwind

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wide" for "Wind" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wide" is an adjective and "Wind" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wide" or "Wind"?
"Wind" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,752 in our German list, against #20,128 for "wide". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wide" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wind" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,881,028 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wide" and "Wind" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wide vs wig". 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 #1,881,028 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