KantevsKarteTell them apart

Which to use

“Kante” and “Karte” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#11,076
“Kante” frequency rank
#1,203
“Karte” frequency rank
12279
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Kante Karte
Definition scharfer Rand, daher auch der Besatz an Stoffen, Kleidern ein handlicher, planer, steifer aber nicht starrer, meist rechteckiger Gegenstand aus Karton, Pappe, Papier, Kunststoff, allenfalls Holz oder Metall

Where the eye mixes Kante and Karte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Kante and Karte follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Kante
5 ch
Karte

Look-alike desk: Kante vs Karte

A purely visual mix-up. Kante ([ˈkantə]) and Karte ([ˈkaʁtə]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - n in “Kante” becomes r in “Karte”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 12279, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Kante is recorded at frequency rank #11,076, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkantə]. Karte is at rank #1,203, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkaʁtə].

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 12279, this pair ranks #1,965,133 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Kante vs Karte

Shared letters: aekt. Private to "Kante": n. Private to "Karte": r.

"Kante" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Karte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Kante ← aknte · kanet · kantte · katne · kkante · knate
  • Karte ← akrte · karet · karrte · kartte · katre · kkarte · krate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Kante" for "Karte" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([ˈkantə] versus [ˈkaʁtə]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Frequency check: "Kante" vs "Karte" - which ranks higher?
"Karte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,203 in our German list, against #11,076 for "Kante". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Kante" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Karte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,965,133 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Kante" and "Karte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Kante vs karge". 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 #1,965,133 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