haltenvshütenWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“halten” and “hüten” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#395
“halten” frequency rank
#16,182
“hüten” frequency rank
16577
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature halten hüten
Definition etwas durch Kraftausübung in Ruhe belassen oder bringen aufpassen auf, wobei meist Tiere, aber auch Kinder gemeint sind

Where the eye mixes halten and hüten

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
halten
5 ch
hüten

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

A purely visual mix-up. halten ([ˈhaltn̩]) and hüten ([ˈhyːtn̩]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16577, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

halten is recorded at frequency rank #395, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈhaltn̩]. hüten is at rank #16,182, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhyːtn̩].

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 16577, this pair ranks #1,934,689 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of halten vs hüten

Shared letters: ehnt. Private to "halten": al. Private to "hüten": ü.

"halten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "hüten" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • haltenahlten · haletn · hallten · haltenn · haltne · haltten · hatlen · hhalten

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "halten" and "hüten" be used interchangeably?
No. They are said differently ([ˈhaltn̩] versus [ˈhyːtn̩]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "halten" or "hüten"?
"halten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #395 in our German list, against #16,182 for "hüten". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "halten" and "hüten". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "halten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hüten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,934,689 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "halten" and "hüten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Häuten vs hüten". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list