feevsfreuConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#14,799
“fee” frequency rank
#6,186
“freu” frequency rank
20985
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature fee freu
Definition Entgelt, Lohn, Gage, Honorar 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs freuen

Letter map: fee vs freu

Shared letters muted; letters that set fee and freu apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

3 ch
fee
4 ch
freu

Role in the sentence - fee and freu

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: fee is anoun and freuaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 20985, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

fee is recorded at frequency rank #14,799, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. freu is at rank #6,186, tagged as averb, pronounced [fʁɔɪ̯].

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 20985, this pair ranks #1,891,491 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of fee vs freu

Shared letters: ef. Private to "fee": -. Private to "freu": ru.

"fee" · 3 letters · shape CVV  ·  "freu" · 4 letters · shape CCVV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • freuferu · ffreu · frreu · frue · rfeu

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "fee" and "freu" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "fee" is a noun and "freu" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "fee" or "freu" show up more?
"freu" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,186 in our German list, against #14,799 for "fee". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "fee" and "freu".

  • Full dictionary entry for "fee" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "freu" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,891,491 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "fee" and "freu" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "fee 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 #1,891,491 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