ego

pron

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

The verdict

“ego” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #8,546 in German word frequency and used as a pronoun.

#8,546
frequency rank, German
3
letters
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - ich

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

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

ego vs es
33% similar
ego vs er
33% similar
ego vs EU
0% similar

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

Key facts for ego
PropertyValue
Headwordego
LanguageGerman
Part of speechPronoun
Letters3
Frequency rank#8,546
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “ego” sits in German frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). ego lands here:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The German entry for ego is 3 letters long, classified as a pronoun. Corpus data places it at rank #8,546 in overall German word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "ich".

ego has no tracked misspelling variants, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "es", "er", "EU", 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 explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct German form is ego, spelled E-G-O.

Definition

  1. 1
    ich

Antonyms

tudu

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 "ego"?
"ego" is spelled E-G-O.
What does "ego" mean?
As a pronoun, "ego" means: ich
What words are commonly confused with "ego"?
"ego" is commonly confused with "es", "er", "EU". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "ego" come from?
"ego" 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.

Using “ego”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct German spelling is E-G-O - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Don't mix it up with “es” - see the side-by-side comparison. ego vs es
  • 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.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list