welchvswellsWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: welch is a pronoun, wells is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“welch” is a pronoun and “wells” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,845
“welch” frequency rank
#17,186
“wells” frequency rank
22031
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature welch wells
Definition mit unmittelbar folgendem Adjektiv: Wort zur besonderen Hervorhebung einer Eigenschaft 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs well

Letter map: welch vs wells

Shared letters muted; letters that set welch and wells apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. welch and wells follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
welch
5 ch
wells

Role in the sentence - welch and wells

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: welch is apronoun and wellsaverb. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 22031, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

welch is recorded at frequency rank #4,845, classified as apron, pronounced [vɛlç]. wells is at rank #17,186, tagged as averb, pronounced […].

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 22031, this pair ranks #1,879,204 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of welch vs wells

Shared letters: elw. Private to "welch": ch. Private to "wells": s.

"welch" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "wells" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • welch ← ewlch · weclh · welcch · welchh · welhc · wellch · wlech · wwelch
  • wells ← ewlls · wellss · welsl · wlels · wwells

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "welch" and "wells" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "welch" is a pronoun and "wells" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "welch" or "wells" show up more?
"welch" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,845 in our German list, against #17,186 for "wells". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "welch" and "wells". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "welch" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wells" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,879,204 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "welch" and "wells" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "puzzles vs wells". 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 #1,879,204 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