hegtevsHeimeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#48,210
“hegte” frequency rank
#33,105
“Heime” frequency rank
81315
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hegte Heime
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs hegen Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Heim

Where the eye mixes hegte and Heime

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. hegte (CVCCV) and Heime (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
hegte
5 ch
Heime

Visual trap between hegte and Heime

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hegte is [ˈheːktə] while Heime is [ˈhaɪ̯mə]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 81315, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hegte is recorded at frequency rank #48,210, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈheːktə]. Heime is at rank #33,105, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈhaɪ̯mə].

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 81315, this pair ranks #178,136 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of hegte vs Heime

Shared letters: eh. Private to "hegte": gt. Private to "Heime": im.

"hegte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Heime" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hegte ← ehgte · heget · heggte · hegtte · hetge · hgete · hhegte
  • Heime ← ehime · heiem · heimme · hemie · hheime · hieme

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hegte" and "Heime" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hegte" is a verb and "Heime" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hegte" or "Heime" show up more?
"Heime" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,105 in our German list, against #48,210 for "hegte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hegte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Heime" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #178,136 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hegte" and "Heime" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hegte vs Hengste". 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 #178,136 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