wirevswirstConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#33,395
“wire” frequency rank
#983
“wirst” frequency rank
34378
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wire wirst
Definition Draht, Anschlusskabel 2. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens des Verbs werden

Where the eye mixes wire and wirst

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

4 ch
wire
5 ch
wirst

Look-alike desk: wire vs wirst

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wire is [waɪə] while wirst is [vɪʁst]. 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 (noun vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34378, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wire is recorded at frequency rank #33,395, classified as anoun, pronounced [waɪə]. wirst is at rank #983, tagged as averb, pronounced [vɪʁst].

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 34378, this pair ranks #1,664,694 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wire vs wirst

Shared letters: irw. Private to "wire": e. Private to "wirst": st.

"wire" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "wirst" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wireiwre · wier · wrie · wwire
  • wirstiwrst · wirrst · wirsst · wirstt · wirts · wisrt · wrist · wwirst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wire" and "wirst" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wire" is a noun and "wirst" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "wire" or "wirst" show up more?
"wirst" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #983 in our German list, against #33,395 for "wire". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wire" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "wirst" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,664,694 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wire" and "wirst" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wig vs wire". 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 #1,664,694 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