zerrieben
[t͡sɛɐ̯ˈʁiːbn̩]
The verdict
“zerrieben” is uncommon German (frequency #86,087 among 37,643 “Z” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #86,087
- frequency rank, German
- 37,643
- “Z” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - 1. Person Plural Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs zerreiben
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | zerrieben |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [t͡sɛɐ̯ˈʁiːbn̩] |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #86,087 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “zerrieben” sits in German frequency
Rare enough to double-check
zerrieben is uncommon German at frequency #86,087 among 37,643 “Z” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed [t͡sɛɐ̯ˈʁiːbn̩]. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for zerrieben, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
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 zerrieben, spelled Z-E-R-R-I-E-B-E-N.
Definition
- 11. Person Plural Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs zerreiben
- 23. Person Plural Indikativ Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs zerreiben
- 31. Person Plural Konjunktiv II Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs zerreiben
- 43. Person Plural Konjunktiv II Präteritum Aktiv des Verbs zerreiben
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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Using “zerrieben”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct German spelling is Z-E-R-R-I-E-B-E-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as [t͡sɛɐ̯ˈʁiːbn̩] (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more German words and confusable pairs in the same reference. German words
Other uncommon German words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.