Which to use
“ihren” is an unknown and “Irrer” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #171
- “ihren” frequency rank
- #29,180
- “Irrer” frequency rank
- 29351
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | ihren | Irrer |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Akkusativ Singular Maskulinum des femininen Possessivpronomens ihr | (männliche^☆) Person, die an einer Psychose leidet, die verrückt ist |
Where the eye mixes ihren and Irrer
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. ihren and Irrer follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCVC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Look-alike desk: ihren vs Irrer
These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ihren is [ˈiːʁən] while Irrer is [ˈɪʁɐ]. 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 (unknown vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 29351, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
ihren is recorded at frequency rank #171, classified as anunknown, pronounced [ˈiːʁən]. Irrer is at rank #29,180, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɪʁɐ].
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 29351, this pair ranks #1,768,385 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of ihren vs Irrer
Shared letters: eir. Private to "ihren": hn. Private to "Irrer": -.
"ihren" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC · "Irrer" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "ihren" for "Irrer" ever safe?
In ordinary German text, does "ihren" or "Irrer" show up more?
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 "ihren" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Irrer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,768,385 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "ihren" and "Irrer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Irrer vs irrte". 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 #1,768,385 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.