drehevsdrewTell them apart

Which to use

“drehe” and “drew” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#15,334
“drehe” frequency rank
#27,249
“drew” frequency rank
42583
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature drehe drew
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs drehen Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs draw

Letter map: drehe vs drew

Shared letters muted; letters that set drehe and drew apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. drehe runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against drew's 4 (CCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
drehe
4 ch
drew

Pair insight - drehe / drew

drehe and drew are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42583, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

drehe is recorded at frequency rank #15,334, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈdʁeːə]. drew is at rank #27,249, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 42583, this pair ranks #1,444,904 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of drehe vs drew

Shared letters: der. Private to "drehe": h. Private to "drew": w.

"drehe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "drew" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • drehe ← ddrehe · derhe · dreeh · drehhe · drhee · drrehe · rdehe
  • drew ← ddrew · derw · dreww · drrew · drwe · rdew

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "drehe" for "drew" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "drehe" vs "drew" - which ranks higher?
"drehe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #15,334 in our German list, against #27,249 for "drew". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "drehe" and "drew". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "drehe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drew" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,444,904 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "drehe" and "drew" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drew vs puzzles". 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 #1,444,904 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