haldevshatteWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#39,984
“halde” frequency rank
#91
“hatte” frequency rank
40075
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature halde hatte
Definition Abraumhalde 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs haben

Letter map: halde vs hatte

Shared letters muted; letters that set halde and hatte apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
halde
5 ch
hatte

Grammar separator: halde vs hatte

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: halde is anoun and hatteaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40075, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

halde is recorded at frequency rank #39,984, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. hatte is at rank #91, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhatə].

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 40075, this pair ranks #1,518,773 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of halde vs hatte

Shared letters: aeh. Private to "halde": dl. Private to "hatte": t.

"halde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "hatte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haldeahlde · hadle · haldde · haled · hallde · hhalde · hlade
  • hatteahtte · hate · hatet · hhatte · htate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "halde" for "hatte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "halde" is a noun and "hatte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "halde" or "hatte" show up more?
"hatte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #91 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.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "halde" and "hatte".

  • Full dictionary entry for "halde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hatte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,518,773 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "halde" and "hatte" 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 #1,518,773 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