Deutsch homophones
wahr/war
"wahr" is an adjective; "war" is a verb - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #38 of 483 German groups.
Data vintage
Grammar picks the spelling
Same sound, different grammar: "wahr" arrives as an adjective, while "war" is a verb. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.
Spelling pairs in this cluster
- Shared stem "wa" then splits - "wahr" (4 letters) vs "war" (3).
Orthographic DNA of this cluster
Shared letters across wahr, war: arw. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.
wahr
4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC
Inventory ahrw · private h
war
3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC
Inventory arw · no private letters vs siblings
Pick the spelling from the meaning
- Write "wahr" when you mean: der Wahrheit, Wirklichkeit, den Tatsachen entsprechend; wirklich geschehen, nicht ausgedacht oder erfunden
- Write "war" when you mean: 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum des Verbs sein
Known mistypes of these spellings
Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.
- wahr ← awhr · wahhr · wahrr · warh · whar · wwahr