frohvsfrohenWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“froh” and “frohen” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#1,386
“froh” frequency rank
#27,729
“frohen” frequency rank
29115
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature froh frohen
Definition voller Freude sein Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs froh

Where the eye mixes froh and frohen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. froh runs 4 letters (CCVC) against frohen's 6 (CCVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
froh
6 ch
frohen

Visual trap between froh and frohen

A purely visual mix-up. froh ([fʁoː]) and frohen ([ˈfʁoːən]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “froh” sits inside “frohen”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29115, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

froh is recorded at frequency rank #1,386, classified as anadj, pronounced [fʁoː]. frohen is at rank #27,729, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈfʁoːən].

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 29115, this pair ranks #1,772,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of froh vs frohen

Shared letters: fhor. Private to "froh": -. Private to "frohen": en.

"froh" · 4 letters · shape CCVC  ·  "frohen" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frohffroh · forh · frho · frohh · frroh · rfoh
  • frohenffrohen · forhen · frhoen · froehn · frohenn · frohhen · frohne · frrohen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "froh" and "frohen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([fʁoː] versus [ˈfʁoːən]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "froh" or "frohen" show up more?
"froh" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,386 in our German list, against #27,729 for "frohen". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "froh" and "frohen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "froh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frohen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,772,761 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "froh" and "frohen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "frohen vs Fröschen". 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 #1,772,761 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