BelegvsbewegWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#8,990
“Beleg” frequency rank
#48,002
“beweg” frequency rank
56992
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Beleg beweg
Definition ein Beweis, ein Nachweis 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs bewegen

Where the eye mixes Beleg and beweg

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Beleg and beweg follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Beleg
5 ch
beweg

Look-alike desk: Beleg vs beweg

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Beleg is [bəˈleːk] while beweg is [bəˈveːk]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - l in “Beleg” becomes w in “beweg”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56992, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Beleg is recorded at frequency rank #8,990, classified as anoun, pronounced [bəˈleːk]. beweg is at rank #48,002, tagged as averb, pronounced [bəˈveːk].

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 56992, this pair ranks #918,751 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Beleg vs beweg

Shared letters: beg. Private to "Beleg": l. Private to "beweg": w.

"Beleg" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "beweg" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Belegbbeleg · beelg · belegg · belge · belleg · bleeg · ebleg
  • bewegbbeweg · beewg · bewegg · bewge · bewweg · bweeg · ebweg

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Beleg" and "beweg" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Beleg" is a noun and "beweg" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Beleg" or "beweg" show up more?
"Beleg" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,990 in our German list, against #48,002 for "beweg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Beleg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "beweg" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #918,751 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Beleg" and "beweg" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beweg vs bewegst". 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 #918,751 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