BewohnervsbewohnteWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Bewohner is a noun, bewohnte is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Bewohner” is a noun and “bewohnte” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,432
“Bewohner” frequency rank
#29,505
“bewohnte” frequency rank
31937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Bewohner bewohnte
Definition jemand, der in einem Gebäude, einem Haus, einem Gebiet, einer Wohnung, auf einer Insel wohnt Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs bewohnt

Where the eye mixes Bewohner and bewohnte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 7 letters in sequence. Bewohner (CVCVCCVC) and bewohnte (CVCVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

8 ch
Bewohner
8 ch
bewohnte

Look-alike desk: Bewohner vs bewohnte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Bewohner is [bəˈvoːnɐ] while bewohnte is [bəˈvoːntə]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Bewohner is recorded at frequency rank #2,432, classified as anoun, pronounced [bəˈvoːnɐ]. bewohnte is at rank #29,505, tagged as anadj, pronounced [bəˈvoːntə].

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 31937, this pair ranks #1,718,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Bewohner vs bewohnte

Shared letters: behnow. Private to "Bewohner": r. Private to "bewohnte": t.

"Bewohner" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC  ·  "bewohnte" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Bewohnerbbewohner · beowhner · bewhoner · bewohenr · bewohhner · bewohnerr · bewohnner · bewohnre
  • bewohntebbewohnte · beowhnte · bewhonte · bewohhnte · bewohnet · bewohnnte · bewohntte · bewohtne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Bewohner" for "bewohnte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Bewohner" is a noun and "bewohnte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Bewohner" or "bewohnte"?
"Bewohner" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,432 in our German list, against #29,505 for "bewohnte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "Bewohner" and "bewohnte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Bewohner" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bewohnte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,718,054 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Bewohner" and "bewohnte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bewohnen vs bewohnte". 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 #1,718,054 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