passtevsPusteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#10,719
“passte” frequency rank
#37,146
“Puste” frequency rank
47865
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature passte Puste
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs passen Fähigkeit von Lunge, Herz und Kreislauf, dem Körper Sauerstoff zu liefern

Where the eye mixes passte and Puste

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

6 ch
passte
5 ch
Puste

Visual trap between passte and Puste

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: passte is [ˈpastə] while Puste is [ˈpuːstə]. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47865, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

passte is recorded at frequency rank #10,719, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈpastə]. Puste is at rank #37,146, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈpuːstə].

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 47865, this pair ranks #1,269,197 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of passte vs Puste

Shared letters: epst. Private to "passte": a. Private to "Puste": u.

"passte" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV  ·  "Puste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • passteapsste · passet · passtte · pastse · paßte · ppasste · psaste
  • Pusteppuste · psute · puset · pusste · pustte · putse · upste

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "passte" for "Puste" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "passte" is a verb and "Puste" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "passte" vs "Puste" - which ranks higher?
"passte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,719 in our German list, against #37,146 for "Puste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "passte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Puste" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,269,197 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "passte" and "Puste" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "punta vs Puste". 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 #1,269,197 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