magerevsMalernWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: magere is a adjective, Malern is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#33,708
“magere” frequency rank
#40,689
“Malern” frequency rank
74397
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature magere Malern
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs mager Dativ Plural des Substantivs Maler

Where the eye mixes magere and Malern

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
magere
6 ch
Malern

Visual trap between magere and Malern

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: magere is [ˈmaːɡəʁə] while Malern is [ˈmaːlɐn]. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 74397, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

magere is recorded at frequency rank #33,708, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈmaːɡəʁə]. Malern is at rank #40,689, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈmaːlɐn].

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 74397, this pair ranks #334,592 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of magere vs Malern

Shared letters: aemr. Private to "magere": g. Private to "Malern": ln.

"magere" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCV  ·  "Malern" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • magereamgere · maegre · mageer · magerre · maggere · magree · mgaere · mmagere
  • Malernamlern · maelrn · malenr · malernn · malerrn · mallern · malren · mlaern

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "magere" and "Malern" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "magere" is an adjective and "Malern" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "magere" or "Malern" show up more?
"magere" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #33,708 in our German list, against #40,689 for "Malern". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "magere" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Malern" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #334,592 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "magere" and "Malern" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "mailen vs Malern". 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 #334,592 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