rotevsRotheWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: rote is a adjective, Rothe is a name, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“rote” is an adjective and “Rothe” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,901
“rote” frequency rank
#30,265
“Rothe” frequency rank
32166
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature rote Rothe
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs rot Ortsteil der Stadt Beverungen, bis 1969 selbstständige Gemeinde

Same sound, different letters: rote vs Rothe

Muted letters are shared; highlighted letters are the only spelling cue when pronunciation matches. Shared run: 4 letters.

4 ch
rote
5 ch
Rothe

Homophone desk: rote vs Rothe

Say them out loud and nothing separates them: rote and Rothe carry the same recorded pronunciation, [ˈʁoːtə]. Grammar is what tells them apart: one is anadjective, the other aname, so most sentences will only accept one of them. They differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 32166, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

rote is recorded at frequency rank #1,901, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈʁoːtə]. Rothe is at rank #30,265, tagged as aname, pronounced [ˈʁoːtə].

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 32166, this pair ranks #1,713,349 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of rote vs Rothe

Shared letters: eort. Private to "rote": -. Private to "Rothe": h.

"rote" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "Rothe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • roteroet · rotte · rrote · rtoe
  • Rotheorthe · rohte · roteh · rothhe · rotthe · rrothe · rtohe

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "rote" and "Rothe" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "rote" is an adjective and "Rothe" a name, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "rote" or "Rothe" show up more?
"rote" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,901 in our German list, against #30,265 for "Rothe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Sound matches; spelling doesn't. Use the exits below to lock the right form or check a cousin pair.

  • Full dictionary entry for "rote" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Rothe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,713,349 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "rote" and "Rothe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Rothe vs Rotor". 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 #1,713,349 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