HeimevshetzeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#33,105
“Heime” frequency rank
#9,045
“hetze” frequency rank
42150
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Heime hetze
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Heim 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs hetzen

Where the eye mixes Heime and hetze

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

5 ch
Heime
5 ch
hetze

Why the eye confuses Heime with hetze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Heime is [ˈhaɪ̯mə] while hetze is [ˈhɛt͡sə]. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42150, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Heime is recorded at frequency rank #33,105, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhaɪ̯mə]. hetze is at rank #9,045, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhɛt͡sə].

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 42150, this pair ranks #1,458,078 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Heime vs hetze

Shared letters: eh. Private to "Heime": im. Private to "hetze": tz.

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Heimeehime · heiem · heimme · hemie · hheime · hieme
  • hetzeehtze · hetez · hettze · hetzze · hezte · hhetze · hteze

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Heime" and "hetze" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Heime" is a noun and "hetze" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Heime" or "hetze" show up more?
"hetze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,045 in our German list, against #33,105 for "Heime". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Heime" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hetze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,458,078 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Heime" and "hetze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Heime 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 #1,458,078 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