airesvsaltesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: aires is a noun, altes is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“aires” is a noun and “altes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#16,077
“aires” frequency rank
#3,501
“altes” frequency rank
19578
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature aires altes
Definition Plural des Substantivs aire Nominativ Singular Neutrum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs alt

Letter map: aires vs altes

Shared letters muted; letters that set aires and altes apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. aires (VVCVC) and altes (VCCVC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
aires
5 ch
altes

Grammar separator: aires vs altes

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: aires is anoun and altesanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19578, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

aires is recorded at frequency rank #16,077, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. altes is at rank #3,501, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈaltəs].

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 19578, this pair ranks #1,906,870 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of aires vs altes

Shared letters: aes. Private to "aires": ir. Private to "altes": lt.

"aires" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC  ·  "altes" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • airesaiers · airess · airres · airse · aries · iares
  • altesalets · alltes · altess · altse · alttes · atles · lates

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "aires" and "altes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "aires" is a noun and "altes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "aires" vs "altes" - which ranks higher?
"altes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,501 in our German list, against #16,077 for "aires". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "aires" and "altes".

  • Full dictionary entry for "aires" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "altes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,906,870 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "aires" and "altes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "aires vs puzzles". 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 #1,906,870 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