TäufervsteurerWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#34,409
“Täufer” frequency rank
#4,658
“teurer” frequency rank
39067
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Täufer teurer
Definition jemand, der eine Taufe durchführt Nominativ Singular Maskulinum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs teuer

Where the eye mixes Täufer and teurer

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

6 ch
Täufer
6 ch
teurer

Why the eye confuses Täufer with teurer

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Täufer is [ˈtɔɪ̯fɐ] while teurer is [ˈtɔɪ̯ʁɐ]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39067, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Täufer is recorded at frequency rank #34,409, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈtɔɪ̯fɐ]. teurer is at rank #4,658, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈtɔɪ̯ʁɐ].

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 39067, this pair ranks #1,546,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Täufer vs teurer

Shared letters: ertu. Private to "Täufer": fä. Private to "teurer": -.

"Täufer" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "teurer" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • teurer ← eturer · teruer · teurerr · teurre · teurrer · tteurer · tuerer

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Täufer" and "teurer" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Täufer" is a noun and "teurer" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Täufer" or "teurer" show up more?
"teurer" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,658 in our German list, against #34,409 for "Täufer". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Täufer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "teurer" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,546,986 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Täufer" and "teurer" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Täufer vs Tuner". 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 #1,546,986 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