GefährdervsgefahrenWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#30,075
“Gefährder” frequency rank
#1,479
“gefahren” frequency rank
31554
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Gefährder gefahren
Definition Person, die für andere zur Gefahr werden kann, bei der ein Verdacht besteht, dass sie eine Straftat begeht; „Person, bei der bestimmte Tatsachen die Annahme rechtfertigen, dass sie politisch motivierte Straftaten von erheblicher Bedeutung, insbesondere solche im Sinne des § 100a der Strafprozessordnung (StPO), begehen wird“ Partizip Perfekt des Verbs fahren

Where the eye mixes Gefährder and gefahren

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 6 letters in sequence. Gefährder runs 9 letters (CVCVCCCVC) against gefahren's 8 (CVCVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

9 ch
Gefährder
8 ch
gefahren

Visual trap between Gefährder and gefahren

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Gefährder is [ɡəˈfɛːɐ̯dɐ] while gefahren is [ɡəˈfaːʁən]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31554, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Gefährder is recorded at frequency rank #30,075, classified as anoun, pronounced [ɡəˈfɛːɐ̯dɐ]. gefahren is at rank #1,479, tagged as averb, pronounced [ɡəˈfaːʁən].

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 31554, this pair ranks #1,725,767 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Gefährder vs gefahren

Shared letters: efghr. Private to "Gefährder": dä. Private to "gefahren": an.

"Gefährder" · 9 letters · shape CVCVCCCVC  ·  "gefahren" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • gefahren ← egfahren · geafhren · gefahern · gefahhren · gefahrenn · gefahrne · gefahrren · gefarhen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Gefährder" and "gefahren" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Gefährder" is a noun and "gefahren" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Gefährder" or "gefahren" show up more?
"gefahren" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,479 in our German list, against #30,075 for "Gefährder". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Gefährder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gefahren" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,725,767 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Gefährder" and "gefahren" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Gefährder vs Gefährte". 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 #1,725,767 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