rohevsruhenTell them apart

Quick tell: rohe is a adjective, ruhen is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rohe” is an adjective and “ruhen” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#22,484
“rohe” frequency rank
#8,268
“ruhen” frequency rank
30752
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rohe ruhen
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs roh sich erholen, eine Pause machen

Where the eye mixes rohe and ruhen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. rohe runs 4 letters (CVCV) against ruhen's 5 (CVCVC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

4 ch
rohe
5 ch
ruhen

Why the eye confuses rohe with ruhen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rohe is [ˈʁoːə] while ruhen is [ˈʁuːən]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 30752, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rohe is recorded at frequency rank #22,484, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈʁoːə]. ruhen is at rank #8,268, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈʁuːən].

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 30752, this pair ranks #1,741,776 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of rohe vs ruhen

Shared letters: ehr. Private to "rohe": o. Private to "ruhen": nu.

"rohe" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "ruhen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roheorhe · rhoe · roeh · rohhe · rrohe
  • ruhenrhuen · rruhen · ruehn · ruhenn · ruhhen · ruhne · urhen

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rohe" for "ruhen" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rohe" is an adjective and "ruhen" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "rohe" vs "ruhen" - which ranks higher?
"ruhen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,268 in our German list, against #22,484 for "rohe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rohe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ruhen" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,741,776 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rohe" and "ruhen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rofl vs rohe". 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 #1,741,776 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