wantedvswartenWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“wanted” and “warten” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#27,131
“wanted” frequency rank
#848
“warten” frequency rank
27979
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wanted warten
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs want Zeit verstreichen lassen beziehungsweise untätig sein, bis ein bestimmter Zustand eintrifft

Letter map: wanted vs warten

Shared letters muted; letters that set wanted and warten apart highlighted. Shared run: 4.

6 ch
wanted
6 ch
warten

Pair insight - wanted / warten

wanted and warten are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 27979, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wanted is recorded at frequency rank #27,131, classified as averb, pronounced […]. warten is at rank #848, tagged as averb, pronounced [ˈvaʁtn̩].

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 27979, this pair ranks #1,792,635 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wanted vs warten

Shared letters: aentw. Private to "wanted": d. Private to "warten": r.

"wanted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "warten" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wantedawnted · wanetd · wannted · wantedd · wantted · watned · wnated · wwanted
  • wartenawrten · waretn · warrten · wartenn · wartne · wartten · watren · wraten

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wanted" and "warten" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Which is more common, "wanted" or "warten"?
"warten" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #848 in our German list, against #27,131 for "wanted". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pair "wanted" vs "warten" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wanted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "warten" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,792,635 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wanted" and "warten" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs wanted". 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 #1,792,635 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