Which to use
“irma” is a noun and “irre” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #31,627
- “irma” frequency rank
- #4,524
- “irre” frequency rank
- 36151
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | irma | irre |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | der Arm | an einer Störung oder Fehlleistung des Geistes- und Seelenlebens (= Geisteskrankheit) leidend |
Letter map: irma vs irre
Shared letters muted; letters that set irma and irre apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. irma and irre follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (VCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for irma / irre
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: irma is anoun and irreanadjective. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 36151, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
irma is recorded at frequency rank #31,627, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. irre is at rank #4,524, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈɪʁə].
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 36151, this pair ranks #1,622,723 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of irma vs irre
Shared letters: ir. Private to "irma": am. Private to "irre": e.
"irma" · 4 letters · shape VCCV · "irre" · 4 letters · shape VCCV
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "irma" and "irre" mean the same thing in a sentence?
In ordinary German text, does "irma" or "irre" show up more?
Useful next steps
You've compared "irma" and "irre". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "irma" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "irre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #1,622,723 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "irma" and "irre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "irma vs puzzles". 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 #1,622,723 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.