frühevsFugeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#5,707
“frühe” frequency rank
#30,065
“Fuge” frequency rank
35772
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature frühe Fuge
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs früh trennende, längliche, unter Umständen auch aufgefüllte Lücke, Spalt zwischen zwei Teilen, zum Beispiel Backsteinen oder Kacheln

Where the eye mixes frühe and Fuge

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. frühe runs 5 letters (CCVCV) against Fuge's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
frühe
4 ch
Fuge

Why the eye confuses frühe with Fuge

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: frühe is [ˈfʁyːə] while Fuge is [ˈfuːɡə]. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 35772, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

frühe is recorded at frequency rank #5,707, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈfʁyːə]. Fuge is at rank #30,065, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈfuːɡə].

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 35772, this pair ranks #1,631,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of frühe vs Fuge

Shared letters: ef. Private to "frühe": hrü. Private to "Fuge": gu.

"frühe" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV  ·  "Fuge" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Fuge ← ffuge · fgue · fueg · fugge · ufge

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "frühe" for "Fuge" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "frühe" is an adjective and "Fuge" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "frühe" or "Fuge" show up more?
"frühe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,707 in our German list, against #30,065 for "Fuge". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "frühe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Fuge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,631,908 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "frühe" and "Fuge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "flügge vs Fuge". 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 #1,631,908 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