WeihervswiderTell them apart

Quick tell: Weiher is a noun, wider is a preposition, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Weiher” is a noun and “wider” is a preposition - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#20,790
“Weiher” frequency rank
#5,132
“wider” frequency rank
25922
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Weiher wider
Definition kleiner, flacher See, stehendes Gewässer, Teich, Fischgewässer drückt einen Gegensatz aus

Where the eye mixes Weiher and wider

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Weiher
5 ch
wider

Look-alike desk: Weiher vs wider

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Weiher is [ˈvaɪ̯ɐ] while wider is [ˈviːdɐ]. 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 preposition), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25922, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Weiher is recorded at frequency rank #20,790, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈvaɪ̯ɐ]. wider is at rank #5,132, tagged as aprep, pronounced [ˈviːdɐ].

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 25922, this pair ranks #1,825,956 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Weiher vs wider

Shared letters: eirw. Private to "Weiher": h. Private to "wider": d.

"Weiher" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC  ·  "wider" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Weiherewiher · wehier · weiehr · weiherr · weihher · weihre · wieher · wweiher
  • wideriwder · wdier · widerr · widre · wiedr · wwider

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "Weiher" and "wider" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Weiher" is a noun and "wider" a preposition, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Weiher" or "wider" show up more?
"wider" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #5,132 in our German list, against #20,790 for "Weiher". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Weiher" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wider" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,825,956 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Weiher" and "wider" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Weiher 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 #1,825,956 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