berühmtervsberuhteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: berühmter is a adjective, beruhte is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#15,578
“berühmter” frequency rank
#28,096
“beruhte” frequency rank
43674
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature berühmter beruhte
Definition Nominativ Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Positivs des Adjektivs berühmt 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs beruhen

Where the eye mixes berühmter and beruhte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. berühmter runs 9 letters (CVCVCCCVC) against beruhte's 7 (CVCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
berühmter
7 ch
beruhte

Visual trap between berühmter and beruhte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: berühmter is [bəˈʁyːmtɐ] while beruhte is [bəˈʁuːtə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43674, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

berühmter is recorded at frequency rank #15,578, classified as anadj, pronounced [bəˈʁyːmtɐ]. beruhte is at rank #28,096, tagged as averb, pronounced [bəˈʁuːtə].

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 43674, this pair ranks #1,410,525 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of berühmter vs beruhte

Shared letters: behrt. Private to "berühmter": . Private to "beruhte": u.

"berühmter" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCCVC  ·  "beruhte" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • beruhtebberuhte · berhute · berruhte · beruhet · beruhhte · beruhtte · beruthe · beurhte

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "berühmter" for "beruhte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "berühmter" is an adjective and "beruhte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "berühmter" vs "beruhte" - which ranks higher?
"berühmter" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,578 in our German list, against #28,096 for "beruhte". 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 "berühmter" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "beruhte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,410,525 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "berühmter" and "beruhte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "berührten vs beruhte". 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 #1,410,525 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