EggervsengeTell them apart

Quick tell: Egger is a name, enge is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Egger” is a name and “enge” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#27,252
“Egger” frequency rank
#3,724
“enge” frequency rank
30976
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Egger enge
Definition deutscher Nachname, Familienname Nominativ Singular Femininum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs eng

Where the eye mixes Egger and enge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Egger
4 ch
enge

Look-alike desk: Egger vs enge

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Egger is [ˈɛɡɐ] while enge is [ˈɛŋə]. 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 (name vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30976, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Egger is recorded at frequency rank #27,252, classified as aname, pronounced [ˈɛɡɐ]. enge is at rank #3,724, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈɛŋə].

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 30976, this pair ranks #1,737,251 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Egger vs enge

Shared letters: eg. Private to "Egger": r. Private to "enge": n.

"Egger" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "enge" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Eggeregegr · eger · eggerr · eggre · geger
  • engeegne · eneg · engge · ennge · nege

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Egger" and "enge" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Egger" is a name and "enge" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Egger" or "enge" show up more?
"enge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,724 in our German list, against #27,252 for "Egger". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Egger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "enge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,737,251 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Egger" and "enge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Egger vs Euter". 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 #1,737,251 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