Stiefschwester
[ˈʃtiːfˌʃvɛstɐ]
The verdict
“Stiefschwester” is uncommon German (frequency #54,920 among 107,600 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #54,920
- frequency rank, German
- 107,600
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - halbbürtige Schwester
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Stiefschwester |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [ˈʃtiːfˌʃvɛstɐ] |
| Letters | 14 |
| Frequency rank | #54,920 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Stiefschwester” sits in German frequency
Rare enough to double-check
Stiefschwester is uncommon German at frequency #54,920 among 107,600 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed [ˈʃtiːfˌʃvɛstɐ]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Stiefschwester doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 Stiefschwester, spelled S-T-I-E-F-S-C-H-W-E-S-T-E-R.
Definition
- 1halbbürtige Schwester
- 2weibliches Kind in einer Stieffamilie aus der Sicht eines anderen Kindes derselben Familie, mit dem es keinen gemeinsamen Elternteil hat (Kind nur des eigenen Stiefvaters oder nur der eigenen Stiefmutter)
Synonyms
Antonyms
This word in other languages
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
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Using “Stiefschwester”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is S-T-I-E-F-S-C-H-W-E-S-T-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [ˈʃtiːfˌʃvɛstɐ] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Other uncommon German words near this rank
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.