Haarspalterei
[haːɐ̯ʃpaltəˈʁaɪ̯]
The verdict
“Haarspalterei” is uncommon German (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency German
- 13
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - übertriebene Kleinlichkeit
Corpus desk
Index DE-haarspalterei · Haarspalterei · German
Haarspalterei · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 13 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | Haarspalterei |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | [haːɐ̯ʃpaltəˈʁaɪ̯] |
| Letters | 13 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Langschwanz-Rang von „Haarspalterei“ im Deutschen
Rare enough to double-check
Haarspalterei is uncommon German outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed [haːɐ̯ʃpaltəˈʁaɪ̯]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "übertriebene Kleinlichkeit".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for Haarspalterei, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct German form is Haarspalterei, spelled H-A-A-R-S-P-A-L-T-E-R-E-I.
Definition
- 1übertriebene Kleinlichkeit
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how Haarspalterei appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Das ist doch alles nur Haarspalterei.
Es ist keineswegs Haarspalterei, wenn Medien von einem 'Täter' oder, vorsichtiger, von einem 'mutmaßlichen Täter' sprechen. Für die Person bedeutet ersteres nämlich eine Vorverurteilung und ob die Gesellschaft diese Person trotz Festnahme schützt.
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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.