KrausevskreiseTell them apart

Quick tell: Krause is a noun, kreise is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Krause” is a noun and “kreise” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#10,683
“Krause” frequency rank
#5,508
“kreise” frequency rank
16191
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Krause kreise
Definition welliger oder in Falten gelegter Stoff 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs kreisen

Where the eye mixes Krause and kreise

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

6 ch
Krause
6 ch
kreise

Look-alike desk: Krause vs kreise

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Krause is [ˈkʁaʊ̯zə] while kreise is [ˈkʁaɪ̯zə]. 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 verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16191, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Krause is recorded at frequency rank #10,683, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkʁaʊ̯zə]. kreise is at rank #5,508, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈkʁaɪ̯zə].

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 16191, this pair ranks #1,937,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Krause vs kreise

Shared letters: ekrs. Private to "Krause": au. Private to "kreise": i.

"Krause" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV  ·  "kreise" · 6 letters · shape CCVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Krause ← karuse · kkrause · krasue · kraues · krausse · krrause · kruase · rkause
  • kreise ← kerise · kkreise · kreies · kreisse · kresie · kriese · krreise · rkeise

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Krause" for "kreise" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Krause" is a noun and "kreise" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Krause" or "kreise" show up more?
"kreise" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,508 in our German list, against #10,683 for "Krause". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Krause" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "kreise" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,937,824 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Krause" and "kreise" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Knaus vs Krause". 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 #1,937,824 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