angervsangryWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#27,185
“anger” frequency rank
#34,511
“angry” frequency rank
61696
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature anger angry
Definition Ärger wütend, verärgert

Where the eye mixes anger and angry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
anger
5 ch
angry

Look-alike desk: anger vs angry

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: anger is [ˈæŋɡə] while angry is [ˈæŋɡrɪ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61696, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

anger is recorded at frequency rank #27,185, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈæŋɡə]. angry is at rank #34,511, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈæŋɡrɪ].

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 61696, this pair ranks #740,062 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of anger vs angry

Shared letters: agnr. Private to "anger": e. Private to "angry": y.

"anger" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "angry" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • angeragner · anegr · angerr · angger · angre · annger
  • angryagnry · anggry · angrry · angryy · angyr · anngry · anrgy · nagry

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "anger" and "angry" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "anger" is a noun and "angry" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "anger" or "angry" show up more?
"anger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,185 in our German list, against #34,511 for "angry". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "anger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "angry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #740,062 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "anger" and "angry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "angle vs angry". 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 #740,062 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