Reif
[ʁaɪ̯f]
The verdict
“Reif” is a regularly-used German word, ranked #7,983 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,983
- frequency rank, German
- 4
- letters
- 4
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - kristalline Ablagerung aus gefrorenem Wasser, die sich in kalten Nächten durch Resublimation an Pflanzen und Gegenständen bildet
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 | Reif |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ʁaɪ̯f] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #7,983 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Reif” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for Reif is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [ʁaɪ̯f]. Corpus data places it at rank #7,983 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 4 likely wrong-spelling variants for Reif, with forms such as "erif", "refi", and "reiff". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "ri", "Rf", "Ruf", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored 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 Reif, spelled R-E-I-F.
Definition
- 1kristalline Ablagerung aus gefrorenem Wasser, die sich in kalten Nächten durch Resublimation an Pflanzen und Gegenständen bildet
- 2die hellen Haarspitzen des Gamsbartes
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: erif,refi,reiff,rreif
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of Reif - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "Reif"?
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Using “Reif”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is R-E-I-F - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ʁaɪ̯f] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “ri” - see the side-by-side comparison. Reif vs ri
- 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.