air

[ɛə(ɹ)]

/[ɛə(ɹ)]/ noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“air” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #2,699) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#2,699
frequency rank, German
6,976
“A” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Luft, Atmosphäre, Luftraum

Corpus desk

Index DE-air · air · German

air · rank #2,699 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #2,699
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 6,976
  • PHOTO-FINISH Weltkrieg

Nearest frequency peer: Weltkrieg (-1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Häufigkeitsnachbarn des Verwechslers „air“

Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten

corpus weight

What this shows Balken platzieren „air“ gegen die nächsten gerankten deutschen Lemmata, kein Reprint der Verwechslungsdesk.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

air vs an
33% similar
air vs am
33% similar
air vs at
33% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for air
PropertyValue
Headwordair
LanguageGerman
Part of speechNoun
IPA[ɛə(ɹ)]
Letters3
Frequency rank#2,699
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „air“

Diese Skala geht vom Kern des Alltagdeutschen (links) bis zum seltenen Langschwanz (rechts).airliegt auf dieser Marke:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Die Achse ist logarithmisch: jeder Tick markiert etwa zehnfach geringere Häufigkeit. Peers derselben Seltenheitsbandbreite: „Weltkrieg“ (#2,698), „anhand“ (#2,700), „volle“ (#2,697). Unter 6,976 „A“-Lemmata liegt „air“ bei #2,699. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for air is neighbouring look-alikes ("an", "am", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [ɛə(ɹ)]. Frequency #2,699 among 6,976 “A” headwords. 7 recorded senses keep meaning in play.

No generated misspelling entries exist for air in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "an", "am", "at", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct German form is air, spelled A-I-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    Luft, Atmosphäre, Luftraum
  2. 2
    Brise, Luftzug, Lüftchen
  3. 3
    Wetter
  4. 4
    Äther
  5. 5
    Art, Stil
  6. 6
    Miene, Aussehen, Wesen
  7. 7
    Getue, Gehabe, Pose

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how air appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absent-minded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff."
  2. "Dr. Mortimer looked at Holmes with an air of professional interest, and Sir Henry Baskerville turned a pair of puzzled dark eyes upon me."

Synonyms

atmospherebreezeappearancemelodytuneaspectmanner

This word in other languages

air(Français)

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "air"?
"air" is spelled A-I-R. The IPA pronunciation is [ɛə(ɹ)].
What does "air" mean?
As a noun, "air" means: Luft, Atmosphäre, Luftraum
What words are commonly confused with "air"?
"air" is commonly confused with "an", "am", "at". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "air"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "air" is [ɛə(ɹ)]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "air" come from?
"air" is a German word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar German words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "air", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked German headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Oma#2,673hör#2,601elf#2,588GiB#2,828

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list