haldevshaltenWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#39,984
“halde” frequency rank
#395
“halten” frequency rank
40379
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature halde halten
Definition Abraumhalde etwas durch Kraftausübung in Ruhe belassen oder bringen

Letter map: halde vs halten

Shared letters muted; letters that set halde and halten apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. halde runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against halten's 6 (CVCCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
halde
6 ch
halten

Role in the sentence - halde and halten

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: halde is anoun and haltenaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40379, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

halde is recorded at frequency rank #39,984, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. halten is at rank #395, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhaltn̩].

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 40379, this pair ranks #1,510,205 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of halde vs halten

Shared letters: aehl. Private to "halde": d. Private to "halten": nt.

"halde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "halten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • halde ← ahlde · hadle · haldde · haled · hallde · hhalde · hlade
  • halten ← ahlten · haletn · hallten · haltenn · haltne · haltten · hatlen · hhalten

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "halde" for "halten" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "halde" is a noun and "halten" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "halde" or "halten"?
"halten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #395 in our German list, against #39,984 for "halde". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "halde" vs "halten" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "halde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "halten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,510,205 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "halde" and "halten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "halde vs puzzles". 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 #1,510,205 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