KürzevsKüsseTell them apart

Which to use

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

#5,862
“Kürze” frequency rank
#13,420
“Küsse” frequency rank
19282
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Kürze Küsse
Definition Sparsamkeit mit Worten Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Kuss

Where the eye mixes Kürze and Küsse

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Kürze and Küsse follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
Kürze
5 ch
Küsse

Why the eye confuses Kürze with Küsse

A purely visual mix-up. Kürze ([ˈkʏʁt͡sə]) and Küsse ([ˈkʏsə]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 19282, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Kürze is recorded at frequency rank #5,862, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈkʏʁt͡sə]. Küsse is at rank #13,420, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈkʏsə].

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 19282, this pair ranks #1,909,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Kürze vs Küsse

Shared letters: ekü. Private to "Kürze": rz. Private to "Küsse": s.

"Kürze" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Küsse" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Kürze" and "Küsse" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They are said differently ([ˈkʏʁt͡sə] versus [ˈkʏsə]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
In ordinary German text, does "Kürze" or "Küsse" show up more?
"Kürze" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,862 in our German list, against #13,420 for "Küsse". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

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 "Kürze" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Küsse" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,909,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Kürze" and "Küsse" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Kaste vs Küsse". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,909,986 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