blasenvsbösenTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#5,810
“blasen” frequency rank
#3,364
“bösen” frequency rank
9174
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature blasen bösen
Definition Luft aus dem Mund ausstoßen; etwas in die Luft beziehungsweise Atmosphäre überleiten; in etwas hineinpusten Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Flexion des Adjektivs böse

Where the eye mixes blasen and bösen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. blasen runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against bösen's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
blasen
5 ch
bösen

Look-alike desk: blasen vs bösen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: blasen is [ˈblaːzn̩] while bösen is [ˈbøːzn̩]. 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 9174, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

blasen is recorded at frequency rank #5,810, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈblaːzn̩]. bösen is at rank #3,364, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈbøːzn̩].

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 9174, this pair ranks #1,981,152 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of blasen vs bösen

Shared letters: bens. Private to "blasen": al. Private to "bösen": ö.

"blasen" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "bösen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • blasenbalsen · bblasen · blaesn · blasenn · blasne · bllasen · blsaen · lbasen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "blasen" and "bösen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "blasen" is a verb and "bösen" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "blasen" vs "bösen" - which ranks higher?
"bösen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,364 in our German list, against #5,810 for "blasen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "blasen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "bösen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,981,152 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "blasen" and "bösen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "blasen vs Blusen". 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 #1,981,152 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