krähtvskrassWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: kräht is a verb, krass is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“kräht” is a verb and “krass” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,792
“kräht” frequency rank
#3,751
“krass” frequency rank
50543
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature kräht krass
Definition 2. Person Plural Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs krähen extrem, besonders intensiv

Where the eye mixes kräht and krass

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. kräht and krass follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
kräht
5 ch
krass

Why the eye confuses kräht with krass

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: kräht is [kʁɛːt] while krass is [kʁas]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

kräht is recorded at frequency rank #46,792, classified as averb, pronounced [kʁɛːt]. krass is at rank #3,751, tagged as anadj, pronounced [kʁas].

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 50543, this pair ranks #1,169,689 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of kräht vs krass

Shared letters: kr. Private to "kräht": htä. Private to "krass": as.

"kräht" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "krass" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • krass ← karss · kkrass · kras · kraß · krrass · krsas · rkass

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "kräht" for "krass" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "kräht" is a verb and "krass" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "kräht" or "krass" show up more?
"krass" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,751 in our German list, against #46,792 for "kräht". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "kräht" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "krass" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,169,689 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "kräht" and "krass" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "kräht vs krönt". 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 #1,169,689 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