rohenvsruhenTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#31,759
“rohen” frequency rank
#8,268
“ruhen” frequency rank
40027
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rohen ruhen
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs roh sich erholen, eine Pause machen

Where the eye mixes rohen and ruhen

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
rohen
5 ch
ruhen

Look-alike desk: rohen vs ruhen

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: rohen is [ˈʁoːən] while ruhen is [ˈʁuːən]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - o in “rohen” becomes u in “ruhen”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40027, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rohen is recorded at frequency rank #31,759, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈʁoːən]. 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 40027, this pair ranks #1,520,069 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of rohen vs ruhen

Shared letters: ehnr. Private to "rohen": o. Private to "ruhen": u.

"rohen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "ruhen" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • rohenrhoen · roehn · rohenn · rohhen · rohne · rrohen
  • ruhenrhuen · rruhen · ruehn · ruhenn · ruhhen · ruhne · urhen

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "rohen" for "ruhen" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rohen" is an adjective and "ruhen" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "rohen" or "ruhen" show up more?
"ruhen" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,268 in our German list, against #31,759 for "rohen". 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 "rohen" and "ruhen" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rohen" 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 #1,520,069 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rohen" and "ruhen" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "rohen vs rühmen". 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 #1,520,069 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