HinternvshungernWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#6,073
“Hintern” frequency rank
#18,930
“hungern” frequency rank
25003
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hintern hungern
Definition menschlicher Körperteil, auf dem gesessen wird Hunger haben, hungrig sein

Where the eye mixes Hintern and hungern

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence. Hintern and hungern follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

7 ch
Hintern
7 ch
hungern

Why the eye confuses Hintern with hungern

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hintern is [ˈhɪntɐn] while hungern is [ˈhʊŋɐn]. 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 25003, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hintern is recorded at frequency rank #6,073, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhɪntɐn]. hungern is at rank #18,930, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhʊŋɐn].

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 25003, this pair ranks #1,839,527 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Hintern vs hungern

Shared letters: ehnr. Private to "Hintern": it. Private to "hungern": gu.

"Hintern" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "hungern" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hintern ← hhintern · hinetrn · hinntern · hintenr · hinternn · hinterrn · hintren · hinttern
  • hungern ← hhungern · hnugern · hugnern · hunegrn · hungenr · hungernn · hungerrn · hunggern

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Hintern" and "hungern" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hintern" is a noun and "hungern" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Hintern" or "hungern"?
"Hintern" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #6,073 in our German list, against #18,930 for "hungern". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hintern" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hungern" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,839,527 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hintern" and "hungern" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hungern vs Hunnen". 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 #1,839,527 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