scratchvswarsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“scratch” and “wars” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#43,485
“scratch” frequency rank
#3,861
“wars” frequency rank
47346
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature scratch wars
Definition kratzen 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs war

Letter map: scratch vs wars

Shared letters muted; letters that set scratch and wars apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

7 ch
scratch
4 ch
wars

Pair insight - scratch / wars

scratch and wars are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 3 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47346, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

scratch is recorded at frequency rank #43,485, classified as averb, pronounced […]. wars is at rank #3,861, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 47346, this pair ranks #1,287,490 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of scratch vs wars

Shared letters: ars. Private to "scratch": cht. Private to "wars": w.

"scratch" · 7 letters · shape CCCVCCC  ·  "wars" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • scratchcsratch · scartch · sccratch · scracth · scratcch · scratchh · scrathc · scrattch
  • warsawrs · warrs · warss · wasr · wras · wwars

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "scratch" for "wars" ever safe?
No. They differ by 3 letter(s) in length, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "scratch" or "wars" show up more?
"wars" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,861 in our German list, against #43,485 for "scratch". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "scratch" and "wars".

  • Full dictionary entry for "scratch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,287,490 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "scratch" and "wars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs scratch". 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 #1,287,490 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