öffnevsohneWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: öffne is a verb, ohne is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“öffne” is a verb and “ohne” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#13,081
“öffne” frequency rank
#111
“ohne” frequency rank
13192
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature öffne ohne
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs öffnen etwas oder jemanden ausschließend

Where the eye mixes öffne and ohne

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence. öffne runs 5 letters (VCCCV) against ohne's 4 (VCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
öffne
4 ch
ohne

Look-alike desk: öffne vs ohne

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: öffne is [ˈœfnə] while ohne is [ˈoːnə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13192, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

öffne is recorded at frequency rank #13,081, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈœfnə]. ohne is at rank #111, tagged as aprep, pronounced [ˈoːnə].

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 13192, this pair ranks #1,959,532 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of öffne vs ohne

Shared letters: en. Private to "öffne": fö. Private to "ohne": ho.

"öffne" · 5 letters · shape VCCCV  ·  "ohne" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • ohne ← hone · ohen · ohhne · ohnne · onhe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "öffne" for "ohne" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "öffne" is a verb and "ohne" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "öffne" or "ohne" show up more?
"ohne" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #111 in our German list, against #13,081 for "öffne". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "öffne" and "ohne" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "öffne" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ohne" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,959,532 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "öffne" and "ohne" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "öffne vs ordne". 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 #1,959,532 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