wentvswettWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“went” and “wett” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#48,632
“went” frequency rank
#20,792
“wett” frequency rank
69424
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature went wett
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs go 2. Person Singular Imperativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs wetten

Where the eye mixes went and wett

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

4 ch
went
4 ch
wett

Why the eye confuses went with wett

A purely visual mix-up. went ([went]) and wett ([vɛt]) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by a single letter - n in “went” becomes t in “wett”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69424, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

went is recorded at frequency rank #48,632, classified as averb, pronounced [went]. wett is at rank #20,792, tagged as averb, pronounced [vɛt].

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 69424, this pair ranks #477,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of went vs wett

Shared letters: etw. Private to "went": n. Private to "wett": -.

"went" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "wett" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • went ← ewnt · wennt · wentt · wetn · wnet · wwent
  • wett ← ewtt · wtet · wwett

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "went" for "wett" ever safe?
No. They are said differently ([went] versus [vɛt]) and carry different meanings; reading the sentence aloud is usually enough to catch the wrong one.
Which is more common, "went" or "wett"?
"wett" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #20,792 in our German list, against #48,632 for "went". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "went" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wett" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #477,055 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "went" and "wett" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wants vs went". 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 #477,055 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