starbvsstarsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: starb is a verb, stars is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“starb” is a verb and “stars” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,861
“starb” frequency rank
#3,921
“stars” frequency rank
5782
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature starb stars
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs sterben Plural des Substantivs star

Letter map: starb vs stars

Shared letters muted; letters that set starb and stars apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

5 ch
starb
5 ch
stars

Grammar separator: starb vs stars

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: starb is averb and starsanoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - b in “starb” becomes s in “stars”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5782, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

starb is recorded at frequency rank #1,861, classified as averb, pronounced [ʃtaʁp]. stars is at rank #3,921, tagged as anoun, 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 5782, this pair ranks #1,993,742 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of starb vs stars

Shared letters: arst. Private to "starb": b. Private to "stars": -.

"starb" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC  ·  "stars" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • starbsatrb · sstarb · stabr · starbb · starrb · strab · sttarb · tsarb
  • starssatrs · sstars · starrs · starss · stasr · stras · sttars · tsars

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "starb" for "stars" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "starb" is a verb and "stars" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "starb" or "stars" show up more?
"starb" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,861 in our German list, against #3,921 for "stars". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "starb" and "stars". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "starb" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stars" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,993,742 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "starb" and "stars" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs stars". 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 #1,993,742 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