KohlenvskühlesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Kohlen is a noun, kühles is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Kohlen” is a noun and “kühles” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,626
“Kohlen” frequency rank
#31,145
“kühles” frequency rank
56771
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Kohlen kühles
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Kohle Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs kühl

Where the eye mixes Kohlen and kühles

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

6 ch
Kohlen
6 ch
kühles

Visual trap between Kohlen and kühles

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Kohlen is [ˈkoːlən] while kühles is [ˈkyːləs]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 56771, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Kohlen is recorded at frequency rank #25,626, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkoːlən]. kühles is at rank #31,145, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈkyːləs].

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 56771, this pair ranks #927,250 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Kohlen vs kühles

Shared letters: ehkl. Private to "Kohlen": no. Private to "kühles": sü.

"Kohlen" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "kühles" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Kohlen ← kholen · kkohlen · koheln · kohhlen · kohlenn · kohllen · kohlne · kolhen

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Kohlen" for "kühles" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Kohlen" is a noun and "kühles" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Kohlen" vs "kühles" - which ranks higher?
"Kohlen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,626 in our German list, against #31,145 for "kühles". 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 "Kohlen" and "kühles" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Kohlen" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "kühles" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #927,250 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Kohlen" and "kühles" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Kohlen vs Kölle". 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 #927,250 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