Which to use
“heel” is a noun and “heilt” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #48,960
- “heel” frequency rank
- #18,919
- “heilt” frequency rank
- 67879
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | heel | heilt |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | der hintere Teil des Fußes unter dem Knöchel | 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs heilen |
Where the eye mixes heel and heilt
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. heel runs 4 letters (CVVC) against heilt's 5 (CVVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Look-alike desk: heel vs heilt
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: heel is [hiːl] while heilt is [haɪ̯lt]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67879, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
heel is recorded at frequency rank #48,960, classified as anoun, pronounced [hiːl]. heilt is at rank #18,919, tagged as averb, pronounced [haɪ̯lt].
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 67879, this pair ranks #525,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of heel vs heilt
Shared letters: ehl. Private to "heel": -. Private to "heilt": it.
"heel" · 4 letters · shape CVVC · "heilt" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "heel" and "heilt" be used interchangeably?
In ordinary German text, does "heel" or "heilt" show up more?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "heel" and "heilt" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "heel" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "heilt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #525,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "heel" and "heilt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "heel 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 #525,784 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.