HopfenvshüpfenWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#23,988
“Hopfen” frequency rank
#20,620
“hüpfen” frequency rank
44608
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hopfen hüpfen
Definition der echte Hopfen, eine 5 m hohe Kletterpflanze, dient als Bitterstoff-Erzeuger in der Bierbrauerei kleine Sprünge machen, mit kleinen Sprüngen laufen

Where the eye mixes Hopfen and hüpfen

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

6 ch
Hopfen
6 ch
hüpfen

Look-alike desk: Hopfen vs hüpfen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Hopfen is [ˈhɔp͡fn̩] while hüpfen is [ˈhʏp͡fn̩]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - o in “Hopfen” becomes ü in “hüpfen”, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44608, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hopfen is recorded at frequency rank #23,988, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhɔp͡fn̩]. hüpfen is at rank #20,620, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈhʏp͡fn̩].

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 44608, this pair ranks #1,380,657 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hopfen vs hüpfen

Shared letters: efhnp. Private to "Hopfen": o. Private to "hüpfen": ü.

"Hopfen" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "hüpfen" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hopfen ← hhopfen · hofpen · hopefn · hopfenn · hopffen · hopfne · hoppfen · hpofen

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Hopfen" and "hüpfen" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Hopfen" is a noun and "hüpfen" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Hopfen" or "hüpfen" show up more?
"hüpfen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,620 in our German list, against #23,988 for "Hopfen". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hopfen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hüpfen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,380,657 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hopfen" and "hüpfen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Hunnen vs hüpfen". 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 #1,380,657 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