wagtevswaleWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#17,464
“wagte” frequency rank
#23,369
“wale” frequency rank
40833
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wagte wale
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs wagen Rippe, Salleiste, feste Webkante

Letter map: wagte vs wale

Shared letters muted; letters that set wagte and wale apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
wagte
4 ch
wale

Role in the sentence - wagte and wale

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wagte is averb and waleanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40833, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wagte is recorded at frequency rank #17,464, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈvaːktə]. wale is at rank #23,369, 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 40833, this pair ranks #1,496,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wagte vs wale

Shared letters: aew. Private to "wagte": gt. Private to "wale": l.

"wagte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "wale" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wagteawgte · waget · waggte · wagtte · watge · wgate · wwagte
  • waleawle · wael · walle · wlae · wwale

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wagte" for "wale" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wagte" is a verb and "wale" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wagte" or "wale"?
"wagte" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,464 in our German list, against #23,369 for "wale". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "wagte" vs "wale" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wagte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wale" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,496,985 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wagte" and "wale" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs wale". 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 #1,496,985 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