wellsvsWelpeWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#17,186
“wells” frequency rank
#32,362
“Welpe” frequency rank
49548
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wells Welpe
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs well junger Fuchs, Wolf oder Hund

Letter map: wells vs Welpe

Shared letters muted; letters that set wells and Welpe apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. wells (CVCCC) and Welpe (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
wells
5 ch
Welpe

Part-of-speech tell for wells / Welpe

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wells is averb and Welpeanoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49548, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wells is recorded at frequency rank #17,186, classified as averb, pronounced […]. Welpe is at rank #32,362, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈvɛlpə].

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 49548, this pair ranks #1,207,339 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wells vs Welpe

Shared letters: elw. Private to "wells": s. Private to "Welpe": p.

"wells" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "Welpe" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wells ← ewlls · wellss · welsl · wlels · wwells
  • Welpe ← ewlpe · welep · wellpe · welppe · weple · wlepe · wwelpe

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "wells" for "Welpe" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wells" is a verb and "Welpe" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "wells" vs "Welpe" - which ranks higher?
"wells" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,186 in our German list, against #32,362 for "Welpe". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "wells" vs "Welpe" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wells" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Welpe" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,207,339 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wells" and "Welpe" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "welke vs Welpe". 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 #1,207,339 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