ons

pron

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

The verdict

“ons” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #30,227) as a pronoun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.

#30,227
frequency rank, German
1,007
“O” headwords
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Erste Person plural : unser

Corpus desk

Index DE-ons · ons · German

ons · rank #30,227 · 0 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-MID #30,227
  • LEN-MID 3 letters
  • VOW-1 1 vowel
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 1,007
  • PHOTO-FINISH Oligarchen

Nearest frequency peer: Oligarchen (-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 „ons“

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

corpus weight

What this shows Balken platzieren „ons“ 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).

ons vs OP
0% similar
ons vs or
33% similar
ons vs Os
33% similar

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

Key facts for ons
PropertyValue
Headwordons
LanguageGerman
Part of speechPronoun
Letters3
Frequency rank#30,227
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „ons“

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

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

Die Skala ist logarithmisch (jeder Tick ≈ 10× seltener). Peers derselben Seltenheitsbandbreite: „Oligarchen“ (#30,226), „opening“ (#30,228), „Objekts“ (#30,225). Unter 1,007 „O“-Lemmata liegt „ons“ bei #30,227. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Easy to mix with look-alikes

The spelling risk for ons is neighbouring look-alikes ("OP", "or", …), not just typos; it is apronoun. Frequency #30,227 among 1,007 “O” headwords. Gloss: "Erste Person plural : unser".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ons, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "OP", "or", "Os", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct German form is ons, spelled O-N-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Erste Person plural : unser

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

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

  1. „Dit is ons huis.“
  2. „Dit is onze tuin.“

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 "ons"?
"ons" is spelled O-N-S.
What does "ons" mean?
As a pronoun, "ons" means: Erste Person plural : unser
What words are commonly confused with "ons"?
"ons" is commonly confused with "OP", "or", "Os". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "ons" come from?
"ons" 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 "ons", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

MVP#30,214Rus#30,267jus#30,139ivy#30,136

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list