pastevsprägteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#24,065
“paste” frequency rank
#21,393
“prägte” frequency rank
45458
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature paste prägte
Definition Paste 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs prägen

Letter map: paste vs prägte

Shared letters muted; letters that set paste and prägte apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. paste runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against prägte's 6 (CCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
paste
6 ch
prägte

Grammar separator: paste vs prägte

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: paste is anoun and prägteaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45458, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

paste is recorded at frequency rank #24,065, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. prägte is at rank #21,393, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈpʁɛːktə].

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 45458, this pair ranks #1,352,333 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of paste vs prägte

Shared letters: ept. Private to "paste": as. Private to "prägte": grä.

"paste" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "prägte" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • paste ← apste · paset · pastte · patse · ppaste · psate

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "paste" for "prägte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "paste" is a noun and "prägte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "paste" vs "prägte" - which ranks higher?
"prägte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #21,393 in our German list, against #24,065 for "paste". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "paste" vs "prägte" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "paste" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "prägte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,352,333 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "paste" and "prägte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "paste 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 #1,352,333 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