watchvswichTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#8,655
“watch” frequency rank
#19,451
“wich” frequency rank
28106
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature watch wich
Definition eine kleine Uhr 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs weichen

Letter map: watch vs wich

Shared letters muted; letters that set watch and wich apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

5 ch
watch
4 ch
wich

Grammar separator: watch vs wich

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: watch is anoun and wichaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28106, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

watch is recorded at frequency rank #8,655, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. wich is at rank #19,451, tagged as averb, pronounced [vɪç].

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 28106, this pair ranks #1,790,452 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of watch vs wich

Shared letters: chw. Private to "watch": at. Private to "wich": i.

"watch" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "wich" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • watchawtch · wacth · watcch · watchh · wathc · wattch · wtach · wwatch
  • wichiwch · wcih · wicch · wichh · wihc · wwich

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "watch" for "wich" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "watch" is a noun and "wich" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "watch" or "wich" show up more?
"watch" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,655 in our German list, against #19,451 for "wich". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "watch" and "wich".

  • Full dictionary entry for "watch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wich" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,790,452 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "watch" and "wich" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wich vs witch". 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 #1,790,452 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