QuellvsquereWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#31,230
“Quell” frequency rank
#29,296
“quere” frequency rank
60526
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Quell quere
Definition Stelle, an der Wasser oder Luft austritt 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs queren

Where the eye mixes Quell and quere

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Quell (CVVCC) and quere (CVVCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
Quell
5 ch
quere

Look-alike desk: Quell vs quere

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Quell is [kvɛl] while quere is [ˈkveːʁə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 60526, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Quell is recorded at frequency rank #31,230, classified as anoun, pronounced [kvɛl]. quere is at rank #29,296, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈkveːʁə].

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 60526, this pair ranks #783,739 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Quell vs quere

Shared letters: equ. Private to "Quell": l. Private to "quere": r.

"Quell" · 5 letters · shape CVVCC  ·  "quere" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Quell ← qeull · qquell · quel · qulel · uqell
  • quere ← qeure · qquere · querre · quree · uqere

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Quell" and "quere" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Quell" is a noun and "quere" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Quell" or "quere" show up more?
"quere" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #29,296 in our German list, against #31,230 for "Quell". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Quell" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "quere" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #783,739 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Quell" and "quere" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Quell vs queue". 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 #783,739 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