martenvsmaterWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#43,341
“marten” frequency rank
#27,842
“mater” frequency rank
71183
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature marten mater
Definition der Marder 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs matern

Letter map: marten vs mater

Shared letters muted; letters that set marten and mater apart highlighted. Shared run: 4. marten runs 6 letters (CVCCVC) against mater's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
marten
5 ch
mater

Part-of-speech tell for marten / mater

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: marten is anoun and materaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 71183, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

marten is recorded at frequency rank #43,341, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. mater is at rank #27,842, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈmaːtɐ].

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 71183, this pair ranks #424,151 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of marten vs mater

Shared letters: aemrt. Private to "marten": n. Private to "mater": -.

"marten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "mater" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • marten ← amrten · maretn · marrten · martenn · martne · martten · matren · mmarten
  • mater ← amter · maetr · materr · matre · mmater · mtaer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "marten" and "mater" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "marten" is a noun and "mater" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "marten" or "mater"?
"mater" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,842 in our German list, against #43,341 for "marten". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "marten" vs "mater" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "marten" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mater" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #424,151 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "marten" and "mater" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "marten vs puzzles". 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 #424,151 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