sleeping

[…]

/[…]/ verb

The verdict

“sleeping” is uncommon German (frequency #69,706 among 8,027 “S” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#69,706
frequency rank, German
8,027
“S” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs sleep

Corpus desk

Index DE-sleeping · sleeping · German

sleeping · rank #69,706 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #69,706
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 8,027
  • PHOTO-FINISH Skilanglauf

Nearest frequency peer: Skilanglauf (-2 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.

Langschwanz-Ränge nahe „sleeping“

Dünnes Band: Balken invertieren den Rang, seltenere Formen wirken kürzer

corpus weight

What this shows Langschwanz-Sicht: wo „sleeping“ gegen ähnlich seltene deutsche Ränge sitzt.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for sleeping
PropertyValue
Headwordsleeping
LanguageGerman
Part of speechVerb
IPA[…]
Letters8
Frequency rank#69,706
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Langschwanz-Rang von „sleeping“ im Deutschen

Diese Skala geht vom Kern des Alltagdeutschen (links) bis zum seltenen Langschwanz (rechts).sleepingfällt in diesen Seltenheitsbereich:

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

Die Skala ist logarithmisch (jeder Tick ≈ 10× seltener). Seltene Nachbarn derselben Bandbreite: „Skilanglauf“ (#69,704), „Smyrna“ (#69,708), „sobre“ (#69,709). Unter 8,027 „S“-Lemmata liegt „sleeping“ bei #69,706. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

sleeping is uncommon German at frequency #69,706 among 8,027 “S” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed […]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs sleep".

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for sleeping, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct German form is sleeping, spelled S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs sleep

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 "sleeping"?
"sleeping" is spelled S-L-E-E-P-I-N-G. The IPA pronunciation is […].
What does "sleeping" mean?
As a verb, "sleeping" means: Partizip Präsens (present participle) des Verbs sleep
How do you pronounce "sleeping"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "sleeping" is […]. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "sleeping" come from?
"sleeping" is a German word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "sleeping", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked German headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list