sharpvsStarWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: sharp is a adjective, Star is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#29,787
“sharp” frequency rank
#1,571
“Star” frequency rank
31358
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature sharp Star
Definition so, dass es gut schneidet (zum Beispiel ein Messer oder eine Axt) ein Singvogel der gleichnamigen Familie

Letter map: sharp vs Star

Shared letters muted; letters that set sharp and Star apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
sharp
4 ch
Star

Role in the sentence - sharp and Star

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sharp is anadjective and Staranoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 31358, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

sharp is recorded at frequency rank #29,787, classified as anadj, pronounced […]. Star is at rank #1,571, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ʃtaːɐ̯].

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 31358, this pair ranks #1,729,713 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of sharp vs Star

Shared letters: ars. Private to "sharp": hp. Private to "Star": t.

"sharp" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "Star" · 4 letters · shape CCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • sharphsarp · sahrp · shapr · sharpp · sharrp · shharp · shrap · ssharp
  • Starsatr · sstar · stra · sttar · tsar

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "sharp" for "Star" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "sharp" is an adjective and "Star" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "sharp" or "Star" show up more?
"Star" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,571 in our German list, against #29,787 for "sharp". 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 "sharp" and "Star".

  • Full dictionary entry for "sharp" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Star" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,729,713 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "sharp" and "Star" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs sharp". 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 #1,729,713 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