frierevsfrühereTell them apart

Quick tell: friere is a verb, frühere is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#49,689
“friere” frequency rank
#3,732
“frühere” frequency rank
53421
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature friere frühere
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs frieren Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Flexion des Komparativs des Adjektivs früh

Where the eye mixes friere and frühere

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. friere runs 6 letters (CCVVCV) against frühere's 7 (CCVCVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
friere
7 ch
frühere

Look-alike desk: friere vs frühere

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: friere is [ˈfʁiːʁə] while frühere is [ˈfʁyːəʁə]. 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 (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 53421, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

friere is recorded at frequency rank #49,689, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈfʁiːʁə]. frühere is at rank #3,732, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfʁyːəʁə].

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 53421, this pair ranks #1,058,679 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of friere vs frühere

Shared letters: efr. Private to "friere": i. Private to "frühere": .

"friere" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "frühere" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • friereffriere · firere · frierre · friree · frriere · rfiere

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "friere" and "frühere" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "friere" is a verb and "frühere" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "friere" or "frühere"?
"frühere" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,732 in our German list, against #49,689 for "friere". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "friere" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frühere" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,058,679 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "friere" and "frühere" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "friere vs Friese". 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 #1,058,679 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