Which to use
“merkwürdig” and “merkwürdigen” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #6,088
- “merkwürdig” frequency rank
- #22,060
- “merkwürdigen” frequency rank
- 28148
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | merkwürdig | merkwürdigen |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | durch Abweichung vom Üblichen auffallend; Staunen, Verwunderung oder aber leises Misstrauen bewirkend | Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs merkwürdig |
Where the spellings diverge
Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set merkwürdig and merkwürdigen apart are highlighted. They share 10 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
A purely visual mix-up. merkwürdig ([ˈmɛʁkˌvʏʁdɪç]) and merkwürdigen ([ˈmɛʁkˌvʏʁdɪɡn̩]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “merkwürdig” sits inside “merkwürdigen”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28148, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
merkwürdig is recorded at frequency rank #6,088, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈmɛʁkˌvʏʁdɪç]. merkwürdigen is at rank #22,060, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈmɛʁkˌvʏʁdɪɡn̩].
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 28148, this pair ranks #1,789,733 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of merkwürdig vs merkwürdigen
Shared letters: degikmrwü. Private to "merkwürdig": -. Private to "merkwürdigen": n.
"merkwürdig" · 10 letters · shape CVCCCVCCVC · "merkwürdigen" · 12 letters · shape CVCCCVCCVCVC