starrevsStürzeWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#18,710
“starre” frequency rank
#27,960
“Stürze” frequency rank
46670
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature starre Stürze
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs starren Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Sturz

Where the eye mixes starre and Stürze

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. starre and Stürze follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
starre
6 ch
Stürze

Why the eye confuses starre with Stürze

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: starre is [ˈʃtaʁə] while Stürze is [ˈʃtʏʁt͡sə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46670, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

starre is recorded at frequency rank #18,710, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈʃtaʁə]. Stürze is at rank #27,960, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtʏʁt͡sə].

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 46670, this pair ranks #1,311,117 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of starre vs Stürze

Shared letters: erst. Private to "starre": a. Private to "Stürze": zü.

"starre" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "Stürze" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • starre ← satrre · sstarre · stare · starer · strare · sttarre · tsarre

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "starre" for "Stürze" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "starre" is a verb and "Stürze" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "starre" or "Stürze" show up more?
"starre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #18,710 in our German list, against #27,960 for "Stürze". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "starre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Stürze" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,311,117 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "starre" and "Stürze" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stärkte vs starre". 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 #1,311,117 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