HändevshankWhat's the difference?

Which to use

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

#1,453
“Hände” frequency rank
#27,764
“hank” frequency rank
29217
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hände hank
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Hand (Garn) Strang, Docke

Letter map: Hände vs hank

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hände and hank apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Hände runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against hank's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
Hände
4 ch
hank

Pair insight - Hände / hank

Hände and hank are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29217, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hände is recorded at frequency rank #1,453, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhɛndə]. hank is at rank #27,764, tagged as anoun, pronounced […].

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 29217, this pair ranks #1,770,933 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Hände vs hank

Shared letters: hn. Private to "Hände": deä. Private to "hank": ak.

"Hände" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "hank" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hank ← ahnk · hakn · hankk · hannk · hhank · hnak

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Hände" for "hank" ever safe?
No. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "Hände" or "hank"?
"Hände" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,453 in our German list, against #27,764 for "hank". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

You've compared "Hände" and "hank". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hände" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hank" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,770,933 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hände" and "hank" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hank 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 #1,770,933 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