wirftvswirreConfusable pair

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

Which to use

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

#2,869
“wirft” frequency rank
#45,704
“wirre” frequency rank
48573
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wirft wirre
Definition 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs werfen Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs wirr

Where the eye mixes wirft and wirre

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence. wirft (CVCCC) and wirre (CVCCV) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

5 ch
wirft
5 ch
wirre

Visual trap between wirft and wirre

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wirft is [vɪʁft] while wirre is [ˈvɪʁə]. 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 adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 48573, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wirft is recorded at frequency rank #2,869, classified as averb, pronounced [vɪʁft]. 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 48573, this pair ranks #1,243,504 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of wirft vs wirre

Shared letters: irw. Private to "wirft": ft. Private to "wirre": e.

"wirft" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC  ·  "wirre" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wirft ← iwrft · wifrt · wirfft · wirftt · wirrft · wirtf · wrift · wwirft
  • wirre ← iwrre · wirer · wrire · wwirre

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "wirft" and "wirre" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wirft" is a verb and "wirre" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "wirft" or "wirre" show up more?
"wirft" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,869 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.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wirft" 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 #1,243,504 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wirft" 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

Confusion rank #1,243,504 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