wahresvswährteWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#9,121
“wahres” frequency rank
#39,738
“währte” frequency rank
48859
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wahres währte
Definition Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs wahr 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs währen

Where the eye mixes wahres and währte

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. wahres (CVCCVC) and währte (CVCCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

6 ch
wahres
6 ch
währte

Visual trap between wahres and währte

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wahres is [ˈvaːʁəs] while währte is [ˈvɛːɐ̯tə]. 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 (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48859, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wahres is recorded at frequency rank #9,121, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈvaːʁəs]. 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 48859, this pair ranks #1,232,946 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wahres vs währte

Shared letters: ehrw. Private to "wahres": as. Private to "währte": .

"wahres" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "währte" · 6 letters · shape CVCCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wahresawhres · wahers · wahhres · wahress · wahrres · wahrse · warhes · whares

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wahres" for "währte" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wahres" is an adjective and "währte" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wahres" vs "währte" - which ranks higher?
"wahres" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #9,121 in our German list, against #39,738 for "währte". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wahres" 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 #1,232,946 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wahres" 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 #1,232,946 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