Tau
[taʊ̯]
The verdict
“Tau” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #21,445) as a noun. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #21,445
- frequency rank, German
- 2,684
- “T” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Niederschlag, durch Abkühlung (in Bodennähe) kondensierter Wasserdampf
Corpus desk
Index DE-tau · Tau · German
Tau · rank #21,445 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #21,445
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,684
- PHOTO-FINISH Stürme
Nearest frequency peer: Stürme (-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 „Tau“
Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten
- strukturell
strukturell
78,559 corpus weight
- Stätten
Stätten
78,558 corpus weight
- Stürme
Stürme
78,557 corpus weight
- Tau
Tau
78,556 corpus weight
- Thalia
Thalia
78,555 corpus weight
- Tierpark
Tierpark
78,554 corpus weight
What this shows Balken platzieren „Tau“ gegen die nächsten gerankten deutschen Lemmata, kein Reprint der Verwechslungsdesk.
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) |
Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „Tau“
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for Tau is neighbouring look-alikes ("TO", "TV", …), not just typos; it is anoun pronounced [taʊ̯]. Frequency #21,445 among 2,684 “T” headwords. Gloss: "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
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Tau appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Die Wiesen sind morgens feucht vom Tau.
„In dem sandigen Staube der viele Zoll tief aufgefurchten Strasse versickerte der Tau ohne jede Wirkung.“
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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Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "Tau", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked German headwords with 3 letters (nearest by frequency rank).