beruftvsberühmtWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#14,521
“beruft” frequency rank
#6,511
“berühmt” frequency rank
21032
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature beruft berühmt
Definition 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs berufen prominent, in der Öffentlichkeit bekannt und meist angesehen

Where the eye mixes beruft and berühmt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. beruft runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against berühmt's 7 (CVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
beruft
7 ch
berühmt

Look-alike desk: beruft vs berühmt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: beruft is [bəˈʁuːft] while berühmt is [bəˈʁyːmt]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 21032, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

beruft is recorded at frequency rank #14,521, classified as averb, pronounced [bəˈʁuːft]. berühmt is at rank #6,511, tagged as anadj, pronounced [bəˈʁyːmt].

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 21032, this pair ranks #1,890,942 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of beruft vs berühmt

Shared letters: bert. Private to "beruft": fu. Private to "berühmt": hmü.

"beruft" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "berühmt" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • beruftbberuft · berfut · berruft · berufft · beruftt · berutf · beurft · breuft

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "beruft" and "berühmt" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "beruft" is a verb and "berühmt" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "beruft" or "berühmt" show up more?
"berühmt" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,511 in our German list, against #14,521 for "beruft". 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 "beruft" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "berühmt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,890,942 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "beruft" and "berühmt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Berufes vs beruft". 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 #1,890,942 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