The 114 most common German nouns

These are the 114 nouns among the 500 most common German words, in the order a corpus of everyday writing says you will meet them.

Meanings are given in English on this page. In the app they appear in your own language, translated on your device.

#	Word	Type	Meaning
57	das Jahr	Nouns	year
77	das Anderes	Nouns	nominalization of andere: the other / different thing
96	der Mensch	Nouns	human, human being, person, man
109	der Mann	Nouns	man, male human being
111	die Frau	Nouns	woman (adult female human)
113	der Tag	Nouns	day (a 24-hour period)
123	das Kind	Nouns	kid; child (young person)
152	die Stadt	Nouns	city (a large settlement)
154	der Börsenmantel	Nouns	listed shell
156	das Land	Nouns	country (territory of a nation)
168	Leute	Nouns	people
173	das Haus	Nouns	house, building
178	die Uhr	Nouns	hours
180	das Ende	Nouns	end, finish
181	das Teil	Nouns	part
182	die Welt	Nouns	world
189	das Spiel	Nouns	a game (instance or way of playing)
195	der Fall	Nouns	fall, drop (the act of falling or an instance thereof)
196	die Seite	Nouns	side
201	der Dank	Nouns	thanks, gratitude, appreciation
208	das Bild	Nouns	digital photograph
209	die Woche	Nouns	week
213	der Junge	Nouns	boy
214	das Geld	Nouns	money
227	der Name	Nouns	name (forename, Christian name, given name)
228	die Arbeit	Nouns	toil, regularly performed work
229	die Frage	Nouns	question (interrogative sentence or phrase)
246	der Platz	Nouns	square, plaza, piazza
253	das Wort	Nouns	word as an isolated unit
255	die Geschichte	Nouns	history
257	die Art	Nouns	kind, sort, type
259	der Herr	Nouns	man, gentleman
260	der Grund	Nouns	ground, land (usually as someone's property)
263	das Thema	Nouns	topic, subject, issue
265	der Monat	Nouns	month
266	die Familie	Nouns	family
271	die Minute	Nouns	minute (unit of time; unit of angle)
278	die Liebe	Nouns	love (tender feeling of affection)
282	die Hand	Nouns	handwriting
283	die Sache	Nouns	matter, affair, case, question, issue
286	der Freund	Nouns	friend
293	das Buch	Nouns	book
302	das Beispiel	Nouns	example
305	der Euro	Nouns	euro (currency)
307	das Auto	Nouns	car
312	die Gruppe	Nouns	group
316	die Rallye	Nouns	rally
318	der Glaube	Nouns	belief, faith
319	der Gott	Nouns	god
324	das Auge	Nouns	eye
325	die Polizei	Nouns	police; law enforcement
327	der Ort	Nouns	place, location, point, position
328	die Nacht	Nouns	night
329	das Ding	Nouns	thing
330	die Straße	Nouns	street
337	der Film	Nouns	film (a thin layer of some substance)
352	der Staat	Nouns	country
354	die Schule	Nouns	school
357	die Idee	Nouns	idea
359	der Kopf	Nouns	head
363	der Bereich	Nouns	area, realm, range, scope
365	der Abend	Nouns	evening; the time from dusk until midnight
366	das Wasser	Nouns	water (H₂O)
370	das Team	Nouns	group of people working together for a particular
373	die Musik	Nouns	music
378	der Vater	Nouns	father
379	der Preis	Nouns	price
381	der Krieg	Nouns	war, warfare
382	die Million	Nouns	million (10⁶)
383	der Lieber	Nouns	dear
387	die Mutter	Nouns	mother
388	die Gesellschaft	Nouns	company (presence of other people in general)
390	der Sohn	Nouns	son
391	die Partei	Nouns	political party
392	der Anfang	Nouns	start, beginning, origin (spatially or temporally)
397	das Ziel	Nouns	target
398	das Mitglied	Nouns	member
402	der Punkt	Nouns	dot (marking an abbreviation)
407	der Artikel	Nouns	article
410	die Wahl	Nouns	choice, selection
411	das Ergebnis	Nouns	result, outcome, conclusion, finding, fruit
412	das Foto	Nouns	photograph
413	das System	Nouns	period
415	der Bayer	Nouns	Bavarian
421	die Möglichkeit	Nouns	possibility, likelihood
423	der Sinn	Nouns	sense
428	die Regierung	Nouns	government/administration
430	der Tod	Nouns	death
431	Eltern	Nouns	parents
433	der Erfolg	Nouns	success
436	die Hilfe	Nouns	the act of helping, assistance
437	die Denke	Nouns	way of thinking, mindset, mentality, attitude
440	das Glück	Nouns	happiness, joy, bliss (state or emotion)
443	das Angebot	Nouns	offer, proposition
450	die Folge	Nouns	sequence
451	die Politik	Nouns	politics (profession of conducting political affairs)
460	die Kirche	Nouns	church (building)
461	Personen	Nouns	plural of Person
465	das Band	Nouns	tape, ribbon
468	die Entwicklung	Nouns	evolution
469	das Mädchen	Nouns	girl
471	das Stück	Nouns	one, item, piece, unit
472	das Prozent	Nouns	percent
478	das Moment	Nouns	momentum
479	die Zukunft	Nouns	future
482	die Angst	Nouns	fear; fright; anxiety
483	die Erfahrung	Nouns	experience
485	die Form	Nouns	shape
486	der Verein	Nouns	association, club, society
488	das Projekt	Nouns	project
489	das Gefühl	Nouns	feeling (either physical sensation or emotion)
493	die Meinung	Nouns	opinion
496	der Mai	Nouns	May
497	die Wohnung	Nouns	domicile; dwelling; lodging; abode

All 500 A1 words are on this page, free, with no sign-up.

The rest of the list

A2A2 Beginner: 500 more wordsvöllig · Interesse · Freunde · Kosten · obwohl
B1B1 Intermediate: 750 more wordsrechnen · Szene · Anteil · Stein · Energie
B2B2 Upper intermediate: 750 more wordsstärken · zunehmen · Übersetzung · leeren · umgehen

A2 to B2 are part of Oqou Pro, in the app, where you can also send any word straight into spaced review and meet it again on the day you are about to forget it.

Where this comes from

The order is measured: it comes from how often each word appears in a large corpus, counted across all the forms of a word rather than each form separately, so a verb is ranked where you really meet it. The band edges are a convention rather than a measurement. Nothing says word 501 is harder than word 500; the levels are cut where established graded reader series cut theirs.

wordfreq 3.1 (frequency order) + en.wiktionary via kaikki.org (part of speech, gender, gloss). Corpus read on 2026-09-16.

Questions

Where does the order come from?

From how often each word appears in a large corpus of everyday writing. Frequency is counted across all the forms of a word and attributed to the dictionary form, so a verb is ranked where a reader really meets it rather than being spread thinly over a dozen endings.

Why are these lists shorter than the ones with 5,000 or 10,000 words?

Because past about 2,500 a frequency rank stops meaning much. Rank 6,000 in a web corpus is not a harder word, it is a word that happens to be common in journalism. Established graded reader series top out near 2,500 headwords for the same reason.

Is every word in the list a real dictionary word?

Yes. Every headword is checked against the language's own Wiktionary entry, which is where the part of speech, the gender and the meaning come from. That check is what removes the proper nouns, single letters and corpus noise that raw frequency lists are full of.

Do I need the app?

Not for this page. The A1 list is free here and free in the app. A2 to B2 are part of Oqou Pro, and the app is also where a word can go from a list into a review queue, which is the part a page cannot do.

Has a native speaker checked these?

Not yet. The frequency order and the part of speech are mechanical, and the meanings come from a dictionary rather than being written by hand, but nothing here has been through native review. If you spot a meaning that is technically right and practically useless, we would like to hear about it.