RechtvsrenntTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#227
“Recht” frequency rank
#9,079
“rennt” frequency rank
9306
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Recht rennt
Definition staatlich festgelegte und anerkannte Ordnung des menschlichen Zusammenlebens, deren Einhaltung durch staatlich organisierten Zwang garantiert wird 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs rennen

Where the eye mixes Recht and rennt

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Recht
5 ch
rennt

Why the eye confuses Recht with rennt

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Recht is [ʁɛçt] while rennt is [ʁɛnt]. 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 9306, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Recht is recorded at frequency rank #227, classified as anoun, pronounced [ʁɛçt]. rennt is at rank #9,079, tagged as averb, pronounced [ʁɛnt].

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 9306, this pair ranks #1,980,589 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Recht vs rennt

Shared letters: ert. Private to "Recht": ch. Private to "rennt": n.

"Recht" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "rennt" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Rechtercht · rceht · reccht · rechht · rechtt · recth · rehct · rrecht
  • rennternnt · renntt · rentn · rnent · rrennt

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Recht" for "rennt" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Recht" is a noun and "rennt" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Recht" or "rennt" show up more?
"Recht" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #227 in our German list, against #9,079 for "rennt". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Recht" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "rennt" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,980,589 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Recht" and "rennt" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "recent vs rennt". 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 #1,980,589 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