belehrtvsbewährtWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: belehrt is a verb, bewährt is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“belehrt” is a verb and “bewährt” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,852
“belehrt” frequency rank
#10,245
“bewährt” frequency rank
31097
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature belehrt bewährt
Definition Partizip Perfekt des Verbs belehren sich als fähig, geeignet, zuverlässig erwiesen habend

Where the eye mixes belehrt and bewährt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. belehrt and bewährt follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
belehrt
7 ch
bewährt

Why the eye confuses belehrt with bewährt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: belehrt is [bəˈleːɐ̯t] while bewährt is [bəˈvɛːɐ̯t]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31097, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

belehrt is recorded at frequency rank #20,852, classified as averb, pronounced [bəˈleːɐ̯t]. bewährt is at rank #10,245, tagged as anadj, pronounced [bəˈvɛːɐ̯t].

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 31097, this pair ranks #1,734,866 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of belehrt vs bewährt

Shared letters: behrt. Private to "belehrt": l. Private to "bewährt": .

"belehrt" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC  ·  "bewährt" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • belehrtbbelehrt · beelhrt · belehhrt · belehrrt · belehrtt · belehtr · belerht · belhert

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "belehrt" and "bewährt" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "belehrt" is a verb and "bewährt" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "belehrt" or "bewährt" show up more?
"bewährt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,245 in our German list, against #20,852 for "belehrt". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "belehrt" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bewährt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,734,866 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "belehrt" and "bewährt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bewährt vs bewährtes". 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 #1,734,866 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