GehirnevsgehörteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Gehirne is a noun, gehörte is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#28,674
“Gehirne” frequency rank
#2,826
“gehörte” frequency rank
31500
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Gehirne gehörte
Definition Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Gehirn Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs gehört

Where the eye mixes Gehirne and gehörte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Gehirne and gehörte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
Gehirne
7 ch
gehörte

Why the eye confuses Gehirne with gehörte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Gehirne is [ɡəˈhɪʁnə] while gehörte is [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯tə]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31500, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Gehirne is recorded at frequency rank #28,674, classified as anoun, pronounced [ɡəˈhɪʁnə]. gehörte is at rank #2,826, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ɡəˈhøːɐ̯tə].

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 31500, this pair ranks #1,726,856 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Gehirne vs gehörte

Shared letters: eghr. Private to "Gehirne": in. Private to "gehörte": .

"Gehirne" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV  ·  "gehörte" · 7 letters · shape CVCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Gehirneeghirne · gehhirne · gehinre · gehiren · gehirnne · gehirrne · gehrine · geihrne

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Gehirne" for "gehörte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Gehirne" is a noun and "gehörte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Gehirne" or "gehörte" show up more?
"gehörte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,826 in our German list, against #28,674 for "Gehirne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Gehirne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "gehörte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,726,856 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Gehirne" and "gehörte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Gehilfe vs Gehirne". 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 #1,726,856 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