ach
[ax]
The verdict
“ach” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #612) as an interjection. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #612
- frequency rank, German
- 6,976
- “A” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - (kurz, ansteigend) drückt Verwunderung aus
Corpus desk
Index DE-ach · ach · German
ach · rank #612 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-CORE #612
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,976
- PHOTO-FINISH zudem
Nearest frequency peer: zudem (-1 rank slots)
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Häufigkeitsnachbarn des Verwechslers „ach“
Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten
- Tod
Tod
99,392 corpus weight
- völlig
völlig
99,391 corpus weight
- zudem
zudem
99,390 corpus weight
- ach
ach
99,389 corpus weight
- CDU
CDU
99,387 corpus weight
- gekommen
gekommen
99,386 corpus weight
What this shows Balken platzieren „ach“ gegen die nächsten gerankten deutschen Lemmata, kein Reprint der Verwechslungsdesk.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ach |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Interjection |
| IPA | [ax] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #612 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „ach“
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for ach is neighbouring look-alikes ("an", "am", …), not just typos; it is aninterjection pronounced [ax]. Frequency #612 among 6,976 “A” headwords. 6 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for ach, suggesting the orthography follows predictable German patterns. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "an", "am", "AG", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct German form is ach, spelled A-C-H.
Definition
- 1(kurz, ansteigend) drückt Verwunderung aus
- 2(langgezogen, stöhnend) drückt Leiden aus
- 3(langgezogen, ansteigend) drückt Aufmerksamkeit oder Interesse aus
- 4(kurzab, wegwerfend) Belanglosigkeit oder Desinteresse aus
- 5(hochtonig, abgerissen) drückt Fassungslosigkeit aus
- 6verstärkt ein darauf folgendes Wort
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how ach appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
ach du liebe Zeit! • ach du meine Güte! • ach du liebe Güte! • ach du Schreck! • ach du mein Schreck! • ach du lieber Schreck! • ach, wer kommt denn da? · ach, woher kommst du denn so plötzlich! ·
ach, wie tut das weh! · ach ich Armer! •
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 German corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar German words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "ach", not the corpus desk frequency band.