WHO
[veːhaːˈʔoː]
The verdict
“WHO” sits in 20 confusable pairs (corpus #4,667) as an abbreviation. The look-alike neighbours are the real trap.
- #4,667
- frequency rank, German
- 2,930
- “W” headwords
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Weltgesundheitsorganisation
Corpus desk
Index DE-who · WHO · German
WHO · rank #4,667 · 0 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-COMMON #4,667
- LEN-MID 3 letters
- VOW-1 1 vowel
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,930
- PHOTO-FINISH warf
Nearest frequency peer: warf (-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 „WHO“
Peers mit ähnlichem Corpus-Gewicht, getrennt von den Verwechslungspaaren unten
- Verletzungen
Verletzungen
95,337 corpus weight
- verwirrt
verwirrt
95,336 corpus weight
- warf
warf
95,335 corpus weight
- WHO
WHO
95,334 corpus weight
- wilde
wilde
95,333 corpus weight
- wirtschaftl…
wirtschaftlich
95,332 corpus weight
What this shows Balken platzieren „WHO“ 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 | WHO |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Abbreviation |
| IPA | [veːhaːˈʔoː] |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #4,667 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Corpus-Rang neben Verwechslern von „WHO“
Easy to mix with look-alikes
The spelling risk for WHO is neighbouring look-alikes ("wo", "WM", …), not just typos; it is anabbreviation pronounced [veːhaːˈʔoː]. Frequency #4,667 among 2,930 “W” headwords. 2 recorded senses keep meaning in play.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for WHO, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable German rules. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "wo", "WM", "wi", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct German form is WHO, spelled W-H-O.
Definition
- 1Weltgesundheitsorganisation
- 2Welthandelsorganisation
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how WHO appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Die Vorhersage der WHO wurde letztes Jahr übertroffen.
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 "WHO", not the corpus desk frequency band.