wurdevsWurstWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#76
“wurde” frequency rank
#5,901
“Wurst” frequency rank
5977
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature wurde Wurst
Definition 1. Person Singular Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs werden längliches Fleischprodukt; meist eine Paste aus Tierfleisch in einen Tierdarm gepresst

Where the eye mixes wurde and Wurst

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

5 ch
wurde
5 ch
Wurst

Look-alike desk: wurde vs Wurst

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: wurde is [ˈvʊʁdə] while Wurst is [vʊʁst]. 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 noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 5977, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

wurde is recorded at frequency rank #76, classified as averb, pronounced [ˈvʊʁdə]. Wurst is at rank #5,901, tagged as anoun, pronounced [vʊʁst].

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 5977, this pair ranks #1,993,100 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of wurde vs Wurst

Shared letters: ruw. Private to "wurde": de. Private to "Wurst": st.

"wurde" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "Wurst" · 5 letters · shape CVCCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • wurdeuwrde · wrude · wudre · wurdde · wured · wurrde · wwurde
  • Wurstuwrst · wrust · wurrst · wursst · wurstt · wurts · wusrt · wwurst

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "wurde" and "Wurst" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "wurde" is a verb and "Wurst" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "wurde" or "Wurst" show up more?
"wurde" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #76 in our German list, against #5,901 for "Wurst". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "wurde" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "Wurst" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,993,100 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "wurde" and "Wurst" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wurdet vs Wurst". 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 #1,993,100 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