captain
[…]
The verdict
“captain” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #7,738 in German word frequency and used as a verb.
- #7,738
- frequency rank, German
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - ein Schiff führen, ein Schiff befehligen
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | captain |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | […] |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #7,738 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “captain” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for captain is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as […]. Corpus data places it at rank #7,738 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for captain, with forms such as "acptain", "capatin", and "capptain". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "certain", "of", "ii", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is captain, spelled C-A-P-T-A-I-N.
Definition
- 1ein Schiff führen, ein Schiff befehligen
- 2Mannschaftskapitän sein, ein Team anführen
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: acptain,capatin,capptain,captainn,captani,captian,capttain,catpain,ccaptain,cpatain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of captain - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 "captain"?
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Using “captain”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is C-A-P-T-A-I-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as […] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “certain” - see the side-by-side comparison. captain vs certain
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.