flehen vs frühen, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“flehen” is a verb and “frühen” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#40,536
“flehen” frequency rank: #2,025
“frühen” frequency rank: 42561
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	flehen	frühen
Definition	emotional, stark untersetzt, bei jemandem um etwas bitten	Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs früh

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set flehen and frühen apart are highlighted. They share 4 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

6 ch

flehen

6 ch

frühen

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: flehen is [ˈfleːən] while frühen is [ˈfʁyːən]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42561, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

flehen is recorded at frequency rank #40,536, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈfleːən]. frühen is at rank #2,025, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfʁyːən].

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 42561, this pair ranks #1,445,559 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of flehen vs frühen

Shared letters: efhn. Private to "flehen": l. Private to "frühen": rü.

"flehen" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC · "frühen" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

flehen ← fflehen · fleehn · flehenn · flehhen · flehne · flheen · fllehen · lfehen

Frequency comparison

flehen#40,536

frühen#2,025

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "flehen" and "frühen" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "flehen" is a verb and "frühen" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "flehen" or "frühen"?

"frühen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,025 in our German list, against #40,536 for "flehen". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Remembering flehen vs frühen

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need a verb, it's “flehen”; for an adjective, it's “frühen”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “flehen” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable