Tau
[taʊ̯]
The verdict
“Tau” is a moderately-common German word, ranked #21,445 in German word frequency and used as a noun.
- #21,445
- frequency rank, German
- 3
- letters
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Niederschlag, durch Abkühlung (in Bodennähe) kondensierter Wasserdampf
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 | Tau |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [taʊ̯] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #21,445 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “Tau” sits in German frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for Tau is 3 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [taʊ̯]. Corpus data places it at rank #21,445 in overall German word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Niederschlag, durch Abkühlung (in Bodennähe) kondensierter Wasserdampf".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for Tau, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "TO", "TV", "tu", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct German form is Tau, spelled T-A-U.
Definition
- 1Niederschlag, durch Abkühlung (in Bodennähe) kondensierter Wasserdampf
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 “Tau”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is T-A-U - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [taʊ̯] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “TO” - see the side-by-side comparison. Tau vs TO
- 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.