spacesvsspäteTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#38,421
“spaces” frequency rank
#11,757
“späte” frequency rank
50178
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature spaces späte
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs space Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs spät

Letter map: spaces vs späte

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

6 ch
spaces
5 ch
späte

Role in the sentence - spaces and späte

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: spaces is averb and späteanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50178, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

spaces is recorded at frequency rank #38,421, classified as averb, 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 50178, this pair ranks #1,183,634 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of spaces vs späte

Shared letters: eps. Private to "spaces": ac. Private to "späte": .

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

Known mistypes of this pair

  • spacespsaces · sapces · spacces · spacess · spacse · spaecs · spcaes · sppaces

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "spaces" and "späte" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "spaces" is a verb and "späte" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "spaces" or "späte" show up more?
"späte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #11,757 in our German list, against #38,421 for "spaces". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "spaces" 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 #1,183,634 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "spaces" and "späte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs spaces". 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 #1,183,634 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