hagervsHungerWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#29,164
“hager” frequency rank
#2,831
“Hunger” frequency rank
31995
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hager Hunger
Definition dürr, mager, sehnig, knochig (und häufig groß gewachsen) Verlangen nach Essen

Where the eye mixes hager and Hunger

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. hager runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against Hunger's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
hager
6 ch
Hunger

Why the eye confuses hager with Hunger

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hager is [ˈhaːɡɐ] while Hunger is [ˈhʊŋɐ]. 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 31995, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hager is recorded at frequency rank #29,164, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈhaːɡɐ]. Hunger is at rank #2,831, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈhʊŋɐ].

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 31995, this pair ranks #1,716,963 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hager vs Hunger

Shared letters: eghr. Private to "hager": a. Private to "Hunger": nu.

"hager" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "Hunger" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hager ← ahger · haegr · hagerr · hagger · hagre · hgaer · hhager
  • Hunger ← hhunger · hnuger · hugner · hunegr · hungerr · hungger · hungre · hunnger

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hager" and "Hunger" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hager" is an adjective and "Hunger" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hager" or "Hunger"?
"Hunger" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,831 in our German list, against #29,164 for "hager". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "hager" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Hunger" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,716,963 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hager" and "Hunger" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hager vs Hemer". 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 #1,716,963 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