wentvsWortWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#48,632
“went” frequency rank
#527
“Wort” frequency rank
49159
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature went Wort
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs go kleinste, eine selbstständige Bedeutung tragende Einheit der Sprache, eine grammatische Einheit

Where the eye mixes went and Wort

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
went
4 ch
Wort

Visual trap between went and Wort

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: went is [went] while Wort is [vɔʁt]. 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 (verb vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 49159, 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]. Wort is at rank #527, tagged as anoun, pronounced [vɔʁt].

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 49159, this pair ranks #1,221,952 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of went vs Wort

Shared letters: tw. Private to "went": en. Private to "Wort": or.

"went" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "Wort" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wentewnt · wennt · wentt · wetn · wnet · wwent
  • Wortowrt · worrt · wortt · wotr · wrot · wwort

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "went" and "Wort" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "went" is a verb and "Wort" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "went" or "Wort" show up more?
"Wort" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #527 in our German list, against #48,632 for "went". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Eye-level mix-up between "went" and "Wort" 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 "Wort" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,221,952 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "went" and "Wort" 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 #1,221,952 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