wantedvsWärterWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#27,131
“wanted” frequency rank
#33,922
“Wärter” frequency rank
61053
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wanted Wärter
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs want Person, die etwas beaufsichtigt oder bewacht

Letter map: wanted vs Wärter

Shared letters muted; letters that set wanted and Wärter apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

6 ch
wanted
6 ch
Wärter

Part-of-speech tell for wanted / Wärter

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wanted is averb and Wärteranoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 3 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 61053, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wanted is recorded at frequency rank #27,131, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Wärter is at rank #33,922, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈvɛʁtɐ].

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 61053, this pair ranks #764,028 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wanted vs Wärter

Shared letters: etw. Private to "wanted": adn. Private to "Wärter": .

"wanted" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "Wärter" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wantedawnted · wanetd · wannted · wantedd · wantted · watned · wnated · wwanted

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wanted" and "Wärter" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wanted" is a verb and "Wärter" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wanted" vs "Wärter" - which ranks higher?
"wanted" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #27,131 in our German list, against #33,922 for "Wärter". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "wanted" and "Wärter".

  • Full dictionary entry for "wanted" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wärter" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #764,028 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wanted" and "Wärter" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wärter vs writer". 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 #764,028 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