WegevswelkeTell them apart

Quick tell: Wege is a noun, welke is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Wege” is a noun and “welke” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,576
“Wege” frequency rank
#47,128
“welke” frequency rank
48704
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Wege welke
Definition Variante für den Dativ Singular des Substantivs Weg Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs welk

Where the eye mixes Wege and welke

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

4 ch
Wege
5 ch
welke

Visual trap between Wege and welke

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Wege is [ˈveːɡə] while welke is [ˈvɛlkə]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48704, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Wege is recorded at frequency rank #1,576, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈveːɡə]. welke is at rank #47,128, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈvɛlkə].

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 48704, this pair ranks #1,238,733 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Wege vs welke

Shared letters: ew. Private to "Wege": g. Private to "welke": kl.

"Wege" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "welke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wegeewge · weeg · wegge · wgee · wwege
  • welkeewlke · wekle · welek · welkke · wellke · wleke · wwelke

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Wege" and "welke" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Wege" is a noun and "welke" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "Wege" vs "welke" - which ranks higher?
"Wege" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,576 in our German list, against #47,128 for "welke". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Wege" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "welke" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,238,733 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Wege" and "welke" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wehte vs welke". 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 #1,238,733 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