glühenvsGrubenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,571
“glühen” frequency rank
#19,595
“Gruben” frequency rank
52166
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature glühen Gruben
Definition vor Hitze in oranger bis rötlicher Farbe leuchten Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Grube

Where the eye mixes glühen and Gruben

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. glühen and Gruben follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
glühen
6 ch
Gruben

Visual trap between glühen and Gruben

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: glühen is [ˈɡlyːən] while Gruben is [ˈɡʁuːbn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 52166, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

glühen is recorded at frequency rank #32,571, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈɡlyːən]. Gruben is at rank #19,595, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɡʁuːbn̩].

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 52166, this pair ranks #1,107,525 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of glühen vs Gruben

Shared letters: egn. Private to "glühen": hlü. Private to "Gruben": bru.

"glühen" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "Gruben" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Gruben ← ggruben · grbuen · grruben · grubben · grubenn · grubne · gruebn · gurben

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "glühen" for "Gruben" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "glühen" is a verb and "Gruben" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "glühen" vs "Gruben" - which ranks higher?
"Gruben" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #19,595 in our German list, against #32,571 for "glühen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "glühen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Gruben" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,107,525 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "glühen" and "Gruben" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "glühen vs Guben". 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 #1,107,525 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