WillemvswilligTell them apart

Quick tell: Willem is a name, willig is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#30,873
“Willem” frequency rank
#25,843
“willig” frequency rank
56716
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Willem willig
Definition männlicher Vorname Erwartungen, Anforderungen von anderen gerne erfüllend

Letter map: Willem vs willig

Shared letters muted; letters that set Willem and willig apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
Willem
6 ch
willig

Part-of-speech tell for Willem / willig

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Willem is aname and williganadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56716, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Willem is recorded at frequency rank #30,873, classified as aname, pronounced […]. willig is at rank #25,843, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈvɪlɪç].

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 56716, this pair ranks #929,385 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Willem vs willig

Shared letters: ilw. Private to "Willem": em. Private to "willig": g.

"Willem" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "willig" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Willemiwllem · wilelm · wilem · willemm · willme · wlilem · wwillem
  • willigiwllig · wilig · wililg · willgi · willigg · wlilig · wwillig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Willem" for "willig" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Willem" is a name and "willig" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Willem" vs "willig" - which ranks higher?
"willig" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,843 in our German list, against #30,873 for "Willem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "Willem" vs "willig" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Willem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "willig" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #929,385 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Willem" and "willig" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs Willem". 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 #929,385 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