wirvsWurfWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: wir is a pronoun, Wurf is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#37
“wir” frequency rank
#11,363
“Wurf” frequency rank
11400
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wir Wurf
Definition 1. Person Plural; mehrere Personen, die sprechende eingeschlossen Vorgang, Ergebnis einer Handlung, bei der ein Gegenstand unter Kraftaufwand über eine gewisse Entfernung durch die Luft befördert wird

Where the eye mixes wir and Wurf

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

3 ch
wir
4 ch
Wurf

Look-alike desk: wir vs Wurf

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wir is [viːɐ̯] while Wurf is [vʊʁf]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11400, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wir is recorded at frequency rank #37, classified as apron, pronounced [viːɐ̯]. Wurf is at rank #11,363, tagged as anoun, pronounced [vʊʁf].

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 11400, this pair ranks #1,970,069 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wir vs Wurf

Shared letters: rw. Private to "wir": i. Private to "Wurf": fu.

"wir" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "Wurf" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Wurfuwrf · wruf · wufr · wurff · wurrf · wwurf

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wir" and "Wurf" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wir" is a pronoun and "Wurf" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "wir" or "Wurf" show up more?
"wir" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37 in our German list, against #11,363 for "Wurf". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "wir" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wurf" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,970,069 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wir" and "Wurf" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Wurf vs Würth". 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 #1,970,069 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