HeerevsHeikeTell them apart

Quick tell: Heere is a noun, Heike is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Heere” is a noun and “Heike” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#34,156
“Heere” frequency rank
#12,939
“Heike” frequency rank
47095
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Heere Heike
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Heer weiblicher Vorname

Where the eye mixes Heere and Heike

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Heere
5 ch
Heike

Look-alike desk: Heere vs Heike

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Heere is [ˈheːʁə] while Heike is [ˈhaɪ̯kə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs name), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47095, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Heere is recorded at frequency rank #34,156, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈheːʁə]. Heike is at rank #12,939, tagged as aname, pronounced [ˈhaɪ̯kə].

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 47095, this pair ranks #1,296,327 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Heere vs Heike

Shared letters: eh. Private to "Heere": r. Private to "Heike": ik.

"Heere" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "Heike" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Heereehere · heeer · heerre · heree · hheere
  • Heikeehike · heiek · heikke · hekie · hheike · hieke

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Heere" for "Heike" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Heere" is a noun and "Heike" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Heere" vs "Heike" - which ranks higher?
"Heike" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #12,939 in our German list, against #34,156 for "Heere". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "Heere" and "Heike" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Heere" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Heike" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,296,327 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Heere" and "Heike" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Heere 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 #1,296,327 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