WiddervswildesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Widder is a noun, wildes is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#25,400
“Widder” frequency rank
#16,051
“wildes” frequency rank
41451
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Widder wildes
Definition männliches Schaf, Schafbock Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs wild

Where the eye mixes Widder and wildes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

6 ch
Widder
6 ch
wildes

Look-alike desk: Widder vs wildes

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Widder is [ˈvɪdɐ] while wildes is [ˈvɪldəs]. 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 (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 41451, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Widder is recorded at frequency rank #25,400, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈvɪdɐ]. wildes is at rank #16,051, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈvɪldəs].

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 41451, this pair ranks #1,479,004 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Widder vs wildes

Shared letters: deiw. Private to "Widder": r. Private to "wildes": ls.

"Widder" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC  ·  "wildes" · 6 letters · shape CVCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Widderiwdder · wdider · widderr · widdre · widedr · wwidder
  • wildesiwldes · widles · wilddes · wildess · wildse · wileds · willdes · wlides

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Widder" and "wildes" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Widder" is a noun and "wildes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "Widder" or "wildes"?
"wildes" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #16,051 in our German list, against #25,400 for "Widder". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Widder" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wildes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,479,004 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Widder" and "wildes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Widder vs Wimper". 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 #1,479,004 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