slatervsspäteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: slater is a noun, späte is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#45,586
“slater” frequency rank
#11,757
“späte” frequency rank
57343
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature slater späte
Definition Kellerassel (besonders in Neuseeland und Australien) Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs spät

Letter map: slater vs späte

Shared letters muted; letters that set slater and späte apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

6 ch
slater
5 ch
späte

Part-of-speech tell for slater / späte

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: slater is anoun and späteanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57343, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

slater is recorded at frequency rank #45,586, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. späte is at rank #11,757, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʃpɛːtə].

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 57343, this pair ranks #904,936 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of slater vs späte

Shared letters: est. Private to "slater": alr. Private to "späte": .

"slater" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "späte" · 5 letters · shape CCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • slatersalter · slaetr · slaterr · slatre · slatter · sllater · sltaer · sslater

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "slater" and "späte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "slater" is a noun and "späte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "slater" vs "späte" - which ranks higher?
"späte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,757 in our German list, against #45,586 for "slater". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "slater" and "späte".

  • Full dictionary entry for "slater" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "späte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #904,936 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "slater" and "späte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs slater". 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 #904,936 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