KohvsKüheTell them apart

Quick tell: Koh is a abbrev, Kühe is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Koh” is an abbrev and “Kühe” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#39,477
“Koh” frequency rank
#8,584
“Kühe” frequency rank
48061
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Koh Kühe
Definition Buch Kohelet Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Kuh

Letter map: Koh vs Kühe

Shared letters muted; letters that set Koh and Kühe apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. Koh runs 3 letters (CVC) against Kühe's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

3 ch
Koh
4 ch
Kühe

Grammar separator: Koh vs Kühe

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: Koh is anabbrev and Küheanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48061, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Koh is recorded at frequency rank #39,477, classified as anabbrev, pronounced […]. Kühe is at rank #8,584, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkyːə].

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 48061, this pair ranks #1,262,220 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Koh vs Kühe

Shared letters: hk. Private to "Koh": o. Private to "Kühe": eü.

"Koh" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Kühe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Koh" for "Kühe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Koh" is an abbrev and "Kühe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Koh" or "Kühe" show up more?
"Kühe" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,584 in our German list, against #39,477 for "Koh". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "Koh" and "Kühe".

  • Full dictionary entry for "Koh" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Kühe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,262,220 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Koh" and "Kühe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Koh vs puzzles". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,262,220 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