absehenvsansehenWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“absehen” and “ansehen” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#26,726
“absehen” frequency rank
#1,758
“ansehen” frequency rank
28484
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature absehen ansehen
Definition (zukünftige Ereignisse) voraussehen den Blick bewusst auf etwas oder jemanden richten

Where the eye mixes absehen and ansehen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. absehen and ansehen follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
absehen
7 ch
ansehen

Why the eye confuses absehen with ansehen

A purely visual mix-up. absehen ([ˈapˌz̥eːən]) and ansehen ([ˈanˌzeːən]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - b in “absehen” becomes n in “ansehen”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28484, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

absehen is recorded at frequency rank #26,726, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈapˌz̥eːən]. ansehen is at rank #1,758, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈanˌzeːən].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 28484, this pair ranks #1,783,927 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of absehen vs ansehen

Shared letters: aehns. Private to "absehen": b. Private to "ansehen": -.

"absehen" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC  ·  "ansehen" · 7 letters · shape VCCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • absehen ← abbsehen · abeshen · abseehn · absehenn · absehhen · absehne · absheen · abssehen
  • ansehen ← aneshen · annsehen · anseehn · ansehenn · ansehhen · ansehne · ansheen · anssehen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "absehen" and "ansehen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈapˌz̥eːən] versus [ˈanˌzeːən]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "absehen" vs "ansehen" - which ranks higher?
"ansehen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,758 in our German list, against #26,726 for "absehen". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "absehen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ansehen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,783,927 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "absehen" and "ansehen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "abdrehen vs absehen". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #1,783,927 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list