RautevsruhteWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#32,734
“Raute” frequency rank
#36,599
“ruhte” frequency rank
69333
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Raute ruhte
Definition Viereck mit vier gleichlangen Seiten 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs ruhen

Where the eye mixes Raute and ruhte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. Raute (CVVCV) and ruhte (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
Raute
5 ch
ruhte

Visual trap between Raute and ruhte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Raute is [ˈʁaʊ̯tə] while ruhte is [ˈʁuːtə]. 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 69333, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Raute is recorded at frequency rank #32,734, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈʁaʊ̯tə]. ruhte is at rank #36,599, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈʁuːtə].

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 69333, this pair ranks #479,785 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of Raute vs ruhte

Shared letters: ertu. Private to "Raute": a. Private to "ruhte": h.

"Raute" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "ruhte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Raute ← arute · ratue · rauet · rautte · rraute · ruate
  • ruhte ← rhute · rruhte · ruhet · ruhhte · ruhtte · ruthe · urhte

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Raute" and "ruhte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Raute" is a noun and "ruhte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Raute" or "ruhte" show up more?
"Raute" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #32,734 in our German list, against #36,599 for "ruhte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Raute" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ruhte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #479,785 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Raute" and "ruhte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rühmen vs ruhte". 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 #479,785 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