AlleevsaltereTell them apart

Quick tell: Allee is a noun, altere is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Allee” is a noun and “altere” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,502
“Allee” frequency rank
#36,169
“altere” frequency rank
45671
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Allee altere
Definition auf beiden Seiten von Bäumen begrenzte, lange und gerade Straße 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs altern

Where the eye mixes Allee and altere

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Allee runs 5 letters (VCCVV) against altere's 6 (VCCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Allee
6 ch
altere

Look-alike desk: Allee vs altere

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Allee is [aˈleː] while altere is [ˈaltəʁə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45671, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Allee is recorded at frequency rank #9,502, classified as anoun, pronounced [aˈleː]. altere is at rank #36,169, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈaltəʁə].

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 45671, this pair ranks #1,345,089 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Allee vs altere

Shared letters: ael. Private to "Allee": -. Private to "altere": rt.

"Allee" · 5 letters · shape VCCVV  ·  "altere" · 6 letters · shape VCCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Allee ← alee · alele · lalee
  • altere ← aletre · alltere · alteer · alterre · altree · alttere · atlere · latere

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Allee" and "altere" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Allee" is a noun and "altere" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Allee" or "altere" show up more?
"Allee" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,502 in our German list, against #36,169 for "altere". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Allee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "altere" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,345,089 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Allee" and "altere" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "altere vs alternde". 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 #1,345,089 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