StühlevsstummeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#10,574
“Stühle” frequency rank
#30,310
“stumme” frequency rank
40884
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Stühle stumme
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Stuhl Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs stumm

Where the eye mixes Stühle and stumme

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. Stühle and stumme follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

6 ch
Stühle
6 ch
stumme

Why the eye confuses Stühle with stumme

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Stühle is [ˈʃtyːlə] while stumme is [ˈʃtʊmə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40884, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Stühle is recorded at frequency rank #10,574, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈʃtyːlə]. stumme is at rank #30,310, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈʃtʊmə].

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 40884, this pair ranks #1,495,570 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Stühle vs stumme

Shared letters: est. Private to "Stühle": hlü. Private to "stumme": mu.

"Stühle" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV  ·  "stumme" · 6 letters · shape CCVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • stumme ← sstumme · stmume · sttumme · stume · stumem · sutmme · tsumme

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Stühle" for "stumme" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Stühle" is a noun and "stumme" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Stühle" or "stumme" show up more?
"Stühle" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,574 in our German list, against #30,310 for "stumme". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Stühle" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stumme" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,495,570 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Stühle" and "stumme" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stemmt vs stumme". 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 #1,495,570 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