Deutsch homophones

Wehr/wer

"Wehr" is a noun; "wer" is a pronoun - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #38 of 483 German groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "Wehr" arrives as a noun, while "wer" is a pronoun. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "we" then splits - "Wehr" (4 letters) vs "wer" (3).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across Wehr, wer: erw. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • Wehr

    4 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVCC

    Inventory ehrw · private h

  • wer

    3 letters · 1 vowels · shape CVC

    Inventory erw · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "Wehr" when you mean: Anlage zur Stauung von Wasser, die quer durch ein fließendes Gewässer verläuft
  • Write "wer" when you mean: fragt nach einer Person oder mehreren Personen

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • Wehrewhr · wehhr · wehrr · werh · wher · wwehr

Each spelling

Wehr

noun · /veːɐ̯/ · #10,974 frequency

Anlage zur Stauung von Wasser, die quer durch ein fließendes Gewässer verläuft

wer

pronoun · /veːɐ̯/ · #133 frequency

fragt nach einer Person oder mehreren Personen

Nearby German homophone groups

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list