DrogevsdroheWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#11,212
“Droge” frequency rank
#34,050
“drohe” frequency rank
45262
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Droge drohe
Definition Substanz biologischen Ursprungs, die eine heilende Wirkung auf den Körper hat 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs drohen

Where the eye mixes Droge and drohe

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Droge and drohe follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Droge
5 ch
drohe

Look-alike desk: Droge vs drohe

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Droge is [ˈdʁoːɡə] while drohe is [ˈdʁoːə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - g in “Droge” becomes h in “drohe”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45262, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Droge is recorded at frequency rank #11,212, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈdʁoːɡə]. 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 45262, this pair ranks #1,359,047 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Droge vs drohe

Shared letters: deor. Private to "Droge": g. Private to "drohe": h.

"Droge" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "drohe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Droge ← ddroge · dorge · drgoe · droeg · drogge · drroge · rdoge
  • drohe ← ddrohe · dorhe · drhoe · droeh · drohhe · drrohe · rdohe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Droge" for "drohe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Droge" is a noun and "drohe" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Droge" or "drohe"?
"Droge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,212 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 "Droge" 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 #1,359,047 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Droge" 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 #1,359,047 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