DrehervsdroheWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Dreher is a noun, drohe is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Dreher” is a noun and “drohe” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#30,009
“Dreher” frequency rank
#34,050
“drohe” frequency rank
64059
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Dreher drohe
Definition Facharbeiter, der eine Drehmaschine bedient 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs drohen

Where the eye mixes Dreher and drohe

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

6 ch
Dreher
5 ch
drohe

Look-alike desk: Dreher vs drohe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Dreher is [ˈdʁeːɐ] while drohe is [ˈdʁoːə]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 64059, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Dreher is recorded at frequency rank #30,009, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈdʁeːɐ]. drohe is at rank #34,050, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈdʁoːə].

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 64059, this pair ranks #654,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Dreher vs drohe

Shared letters: dehr. Private to "Dreher": -. Private to "drohe": o.

"Dreher" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "drohe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Dreher ← ddreher · derher · dreehr · dreherr · drehher · drehre · drheer · drreher
  • drohe ← ddrohe · dorhe · drhoe · droeh · drohhe · drrohe · rdohe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Dreher" for "drohe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Dreher" is a noun and "drohe" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Dreher" or "drohe" show up more?
"Dreher" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #30,009 in our German list, against #34,050 for "drohe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Dreher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "drohe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #654,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Dreher" and "drohe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "drohe vs dröhnt". 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 #654,824 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