wehtevsWeileWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#45,686
“wehte” frequency rank
#3,093
“Weile” frequency rank
48779
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wehte Weile
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs wehen unbestimmte, kürzere Zeitdauer

Where the eye mixes wehte and Weile

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

5 ch
wehte
5 ch
Weile

Visual trap between wehte and Weile

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wehte is [ˈveːtə] while Weile is [ˈvaɪ̯lə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48779, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wehte is recorded at frequency rank #45,686, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈveːtə]. Weile is at rank #3,093, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈvaɪ̯lə].

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 48779, this pair ranks #1,235,960 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wehte vs Weile

Shared letters: ew. Private to "wehte": ht. Private to "Weile": il.

"wehte" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Weile" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wehteewhte · wehet · wehhte · wehtte · wethe · whete · wwehte
  • Weileewile · weiel · weille · welie · wiele · wweile

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wehte" and "Weile" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wehte" is a verb and "Weile" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wehte" or "Weile"?
"Weile" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #3,093 in our German list, against #45,686 for "wehte". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "wehte" and "Weile" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wehte" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Weile" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,235,960 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wehte" and "Weile" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "waste vs wehte". 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 #1,235,960 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