strangervsstrengeTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#36,044
“stranger” frequency rank
#9,101
“strenge” frequency rank
45145
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature stranger strenge
Definition Fremder, Fremde Nominativ Singular Femininum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs streng

Letter map: stranger vs strenge

Shared letters muted; letters that set stranger and strenge apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. stranger runs 8 letters (CCCVCCVC) against strenge's 7 (CCCVCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

8 ch
stranger
7 ch
strenge

Part-of-speech tell for stranger / strenge

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stranger is anoun and strengeanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45145, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

stranger is recorded at frequency rank #36,044, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. strenge is at rank #9,101, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʃtʁɛŋə].

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 45145, this pair ranks #1,362,952 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of stranger vs strenge

Shared letters: egnrst. Private to "stranger": a. Private to "strenge": -.

"stranger" · 8 letters · shape CCCVCCVC  ·  "strenge" · 7 letters · shape CCCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stranger ← srtanger · sstranger · starnger · stragner · stranegr · strangerr · strangger · strangre
  • strenge ← srtenge · sstrenge · sternge · stregne · streneg · strengge · strennge · strnege

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "stranger" and "strenge" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "stranger" is a noun and "strenge" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "stranger" or "strenge" show up more?
"strenge" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,101 in our German list, against #36,044 for "stranger". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "stranger" and "strenge". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "stranger" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "strenge" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,362,952 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "stranger" and "strenge" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs stranger". 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 #1,362,952 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