chervscherryWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#21,929
“cher” frequency rank
#17,841
“cherry” frequency rank
39770
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature cher cherry
Definition teuer, hold, lieb, wert Kirsche (Frucht)

Where the eye mixes cher and cherry

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

4 ch
cher
6 ch
cherry

Why the eye confuses cher with cherry

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: cher is [ʃɛʁ] while cherry is [ˈtʃeri]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “cher” sits inside “cherry”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39770, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

cher is recorded at frequency rank #21,929, classified as anadj, pronounced [ʃɛʁ]. cherry is at rank #17,841, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈtʃeri].

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 39770, this pair ranks #1,527,396 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of cher vs cherry

Shared letters: cehr. Private to "cher": -. Private to "cherry": y.

"cher" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "cherry" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • cherccher · cehr · cherr · chher · chre · hcer
  • cherryccherry · cehrry · cherryy · chery · cheryr · chherry · chrery · hcerry

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "cher" and "cherry" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "cher" is an adjective and "cherry" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "cher" vs "cherry" - which ranks higher?
"cherry" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,841 in our German list, against #21,929 for "cher". 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 "cher" and "cherry" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "cher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cherry" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,527,396 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "cher" and "cherry" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "carr vs cher". 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 #1,527,396 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