welkevsWetteConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#47,128
“welke” frequency rank
#4,847
“Wette” frequency rank
51975
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature welke Wette
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs welk eine zwischen zwei oder mehr Personen getroffene Verabredung, wonach bei Eintreten oder Nichteintreten eines Ereignisses oder bei Nachweis der Gültigkeit oder Nichtgültigkeit einer Behauptung ein vereinbarter Einsatz zwischen den Personen wechselt

Where the eye mixes welke and Wette

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

Visual trap between welke and Wette

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: welke is [ˈvɛlkə] while Wette is [ˈvɛtə]. 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 51975, 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]. Wette is at rank #4,847, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈvɛtə].

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 51975, this pair ranks #1,114,749 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of welke vs Wette

Shared letters: ew. Private to "welke": kl. Private to "Wette": t.

"welke" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Wette" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • welke ← ewlke · wekle · welek · welkke · wellke · wleke · wwelke
  • Wette ← ewtte · wete · wetet · wtete · wwette

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "welke" for "Wette" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "welke" is an adjective and "Wette" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "welke" or "Wette" show up more?
"Wette" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #4,847 in our German list, against #47,128 for "welke". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "welke" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wette" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,114,749 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "welke" and "Wette" 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 #1,114,749 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