allesvsarmesWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: alles is a pronoun, armes is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“alles” is a pronoun and “armes” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#97
“alles” frequency rank
#11,005
“armes” frequency rank
11102
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature alles armes
Definition Genitiv Singular Maskulinum des Indefinitpronomens all Nominativ Singular Neutrum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs arm

Where the eye mixes alles and armes

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
alles
5 ch
armes

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: alles is [ˈaləs] while armes is [ˈaʁməs]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11102, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

alles is recorded at frequency rank #97, classified as apron, pronounced [ˈaləs]. armes is at rank #11,005, tagged as anadj, pronounced [ˈaʁməs].

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 11102, this pair ranks #1,971,688 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of alles vs armes

Shared letters: aes. Private to "alles": l. Private to "armes": mr.

"alles" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC  ·  "armes" · 5 letters · shape VCCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • allesalels · ales · alless · allse · lales
  • armesamres · arems · armess · armmes · armse · arrmes · rames

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "alles" and "armes" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "alles" is a pronoun and "armes" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "alles" or "armes"?
"alles" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #97 in our German list, against #11,005 for "armes". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "alles" and "armes". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "alles" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "armes" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,971,688 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "alles" and "armes" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arma vs armes". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

PlainSpell is a reference corpus, not spelling advice. Verify unusual forms in context.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list