armevsarmyWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: arme is a adjective, army is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“arme” is an adjective and “army” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#1,652
“arme” frequency rank
#11,593
“army” frequency rank
13245
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature arme army
Definition Nominativ Singular Femininum der starken Deklination des Positivs des Adjektivs arm Heer

Where the eye mixes arme and army

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

4 ch
arme
4 ch
army

Visual trap between arme and army

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: arme is [ˈaʁmə] while army is [ˈɑːmɪ]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by a single letter - e in “arme” becomes y in “army”, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs noun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 13245, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

arme is recorded at frequency rank #1,652, classified as anadj, pronounced [ˈaʁmə]. army is at rank #11,593, tagged as anoun, pronounced [ˈɑːmɪ].

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 13245, this pair ranks #1,959,176 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of arme vs army

Shared letters: amr. Private to "arme": e. Private to "army": y.

"arme" · 4 letters · shape VCCV  ·  "army" · 4 letters · shape VCCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • armeamre · arem · armme · arrme · rame
  • armyarmmy · armyy · arrmy · arym · ramy

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "arme" for "army" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "arme" is an adjective and "army" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "arme" or "army"?
"arme" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,652 in our German list, against #11,593 for "army". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "arme" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "army" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,959,176 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "arme" and "army" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "arma vs army". 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

Confusion rank #1,959,176 of 2,006,359 scored German pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list