besorgvsbesorgteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#35,103
“besorg” frequency rank
#12,036
“besorgte” frequency rank
47139
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature besorg besorgte
Definition 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs besorgen Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs besorgt

Where the eye mixes besorg and besorgte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. besorg runs 6 letters (CVCVCC) against besorgte's 8 (CVCVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
besorg
8 ch
besorgte

Look-alike desk: besorg vs besorgte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: besorg is [bəˈzɔʁk] while besorgte is [bəˈzɔʁktə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “besorg” sits inside “besorgte”, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47139, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

besorg is recorded at frequency rank #35,103, classified as averb, pronounced [bəˈzɔʁk]. besorgte is at rank #12,036, tagged as anadj, pronounced [bəˈzɔʁktə].

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 47139, this pair ranks #1,294,831 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of besorg vs besorgte

Shared letters: begors. Private to "besorg": -. Private to "besorgte": t.

"besorg" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC  ·  "besorgte" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • besorg ← bbesorg · beosrg · besogr · besorgg · besorrg · besrog · bessorg · bseorg
  • besorgte ← bbesorgte · beosrgte · besogrte · besorget · besorggte · besorgtte · besorrgte · besortge

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "besorg" and "besorgte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "besorg" is a verb and "besorgte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "besorg" or "besorgte" show up more?
"besorgte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,036 in our German list, against #35,103 for "besorg". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "besorg" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "besorgte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,294,831 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "besorg" and "besorgte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "besorg vs besorge". 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 #1,294,831 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