bladevsBürdeTell them apart

Quick tell: blade is a adjective, Bürde is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#21,552
“blade” frequency rank
#33,507
“Bürde” frequency rank
55059
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blade Bürde
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs blad Last mit hohem Gewicht

Where the eye mixes blade and Bürde

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. blade (CCVCV) and Bürde (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
blade
5 ch
Bürde

Why the eye confuses blade with Bürde

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: blade is [ˈblaːdə] while Bürde is [ˈbʏʁdə]. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55059, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blade is recorded at frequency rank #21,552, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈblaːdə]. Bürde is at rank #33,507, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈbʏʁdə].

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 55059, this pair ranks #994,361 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of blade vs Bürde

Shared letters: bde. Private to "blade": al. Private to "Bürde": rü.

"blade" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "Bürde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blade ← balde · bblade · bladde · blaed · bldae · bllade · lbade

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "blade" for "Bürde" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "blade" is an adjective and "Bürde" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "blade" vs "Bürde" - which ranks higher?
"blade" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,552 in our German list, against #33,507 for "Bürde". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "blade" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Bürde" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #994,361 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blade" and "Bürde" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Bube vs Bürde". 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 #994,361 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