wirvswirreWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: wir is a pronoun, wirre is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“wir” is a pronoun and “wirre” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37
“wir” frequency rank
#45,704
“wirre” frequency rank
45741
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wir wirre
Definition 1. Person Plural; mehrere Personen, die sprechende eingeschlossen Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs wirr

Where the eye mixes wir and wirre

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

3 ch
wir
5 ch
wirre

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wir is [viːɐ̯] while wirre is [ˈvɪʁə]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “wir” sits inside “wirre”, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 45741, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wir is recorded at frequency rank #37, classified as apron, pronounced [viːɐ̯]. wirre is at rank #45,704, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈvɪʁə].

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 45741, this pair ranks #1,342,749 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wir vs wirre

Shared letters: irw. Private to "wir": -. Private to "wirre": e.

"wir" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "wirre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wirreiwrre · wirer · wrire · wwirre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wir" and "wirre" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wir" is a pronoun and "wirre" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "wir" or "wirre"?
"wir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37 in our German list, against #45,704 for "wirre". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "wir" and "wirre". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wirre" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,342,749 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wir" and "wirre" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wirre vs wirres". 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

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list