welkevsWendeConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#47,128
“welke” frequency rank
#4,397
“Wende” frequency rank
51525
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature welke Wende
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs welk einschneidende Veränderung, Umbruch

Where the eye mixes welke and Wende

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. welke and Wende follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CVCCV). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.

5 ch
welke
5 ch
Wende

Look-alike desk: welke vs Wende

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: welke is [ˈvɛlkə] while Wende is [ˈvɛndə]. 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 (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51525, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

welke is recorded at frequency rank #47,128, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈvɛlkə]. Wende is at rank #4,397, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈvɛndə].

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 51525, this pair ranks #1,132,151 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of welke vs Wende

Shared letters: ew. Private to "welke": kl. Private to "Wende": dn.

"welke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Wende" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • welke ← ewlke · wekle · welek · welkke · wellke · wleke · wwelke
  • Wende ← ewnde · wedne · wendde · wened · wennde · wnede · wwende

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "welke" for "Wende" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "welke" is an adjective and "Wende" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "welke" vs "Wende" - which ranks higher?
"Wende" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,397 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

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "welke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wende" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,132,151 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "welke" and "Wende" 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 #1,132,151 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