wahrevswährteWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: wahre is a adjective, währte is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wahre” is an adjective and “währte” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#2,274
“wahre” frequency rank
#39,738
“währte” frequency rank
42012
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wahre währte
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum Positiv der starken Flexion des Adjektivs wahr 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs währen

Where the eye mixes wahre and währte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. wahre runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against währte's 6 (CVCCCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
wahre
6 ch
währte

Visual trap between wahre and währte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wahre is [ˈvaːʁə] while währte is [ˈvɛːɐ̯tə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42012, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wahre is recorded at frequency rank #2,274, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈvaːʁə]. währte is at rank #39,738, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈvɛːɐ̯tə].

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 42012, this pair ranks #1,462,264 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wahre vs währte

Shared letters: ehrw. Private to "wahre": a. Private to "währte": tä.

"wahre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "währte" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wahre ← awhre · waher · wahhre · wahrre · warhe · whare · wwahre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wahre" and "währte" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wahre" is an adjective and "währte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wahre" or "währte"?
"wahre" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,274 in our German list, against #39,738 for "währte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "wahre" and "währte" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wahre" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "währte" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,462,264 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wahre" and "währte" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "währte vs waste". 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 #1,462,264 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