falsevsFelgeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#23,516
“false” frequency rank
#49,666
“Felge” frequency rank
73182
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature false Felge
Definition falsch Bestandteil eines Rades, der den Reifen trägt

Where the eye mixes false and Felge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. false and Felge follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
false
5 ch
Felge

Why the eye confuses false with Felge

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: false is [fɔːls] while Felge is [ˈfɛlɡə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 73182, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

false is recorded at frequency rank #23,516, classified as anadj, pronounced [fɔːls]. Felge is at rank #49,666, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈfɛlɡə].

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 73182, this pair ranks #367,462 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of false vs Felge

Shared letters: efl. Private to "false": as. Private to "Felge": g.

"false" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Felge" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • false ← aflse · falsse · fasle · ffalse · flase
  • Felge ← eflge · fegle · feleg · felgge · fellge · ffelge · flege

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "false" and "Felge" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "false" is an adjective and "Felge" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "false" vs "Felge" - which ranks higher?
"false" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #23,516 in our German list, against #49,666 for "Felge". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "false" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Felge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #367,462 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "false" and "Felge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Felge vs Fete". 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 #367,462 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