ReckevsreineWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: Recke is a noun, reine is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Recke” is a noun and “reine” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#41,415
“Recke” frequency rank
#3,068
“reine” frequency rank
44483
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Recke reine
Definition ungeschlachter, riesenhafter Krieger, Held aus Sagen Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs rein

Where the eye mixes Recke and reine

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

5 ch
Recke
5 ch
reine

Look-alike desk: Recke vs reine

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Recke is [ˈʁɛkə] while reine is [ˈʁaɪ̯nə]. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 44483, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Recke is recorded at frequency rank #41,415, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈʁɛkə]. reine is at rank #3,068, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʁaɪ̯nə].

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 44483, this pair ranks #1,384,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Recke vs reine

Shared letters: er. Private to "Recke": ck. Private to "reine": in.

"Recke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "reine" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Recke ← ercke · rceke · reccke · recek · reckke · rekce · rrecke
  • reine ← erine · reien · reinne · renie · riene · rreine

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Recke" and "reine" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Recke" is a noun and "reine" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Recke" vs "reine" - which ranks higher?
"reine" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,068 in our German list, against #41,415 for "Recke". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Recke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "reine" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,384,784 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Recke" and "reine" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rack vs Recke". 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 #1,384,784 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