bainvsbeimTell them apart

Quick tell: bain is a noun, beim is an abbrev, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“bain” is a noun and “beim” is an abbrev - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,234
“bain” frequency rank
#113
“beim” frequency rank
47347
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature bain beim
Definition Bad Zusammenfluss von Präposition und bestimmtem Artikel (Dativ): bei dem

Letter map: bain vs beim

Shared letters muted; letters that set bain and beim apart highlighted. Shared run: 2.

4 ch
bain
4 ch
beim

Grammar separator: bain vs beim

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: bain is anoun and beimanabbrev. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 47347, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

bain is recorded at frequency rank #47,234, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. beim is at rank #113, tagged as anabbrev, pronounced [baɪ̯m].

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 47347, this pair ranks #1,287,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of bain vs beim

Shared letters: bi. Private to "bain": an. Private to "beim": em.

"bain" · 4 letters · shape CVVC  ·  "beim" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • bainabin · bainn · bani · bbain
  • beimbbeim · beimm · bemi · biem · ebim

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "bain" for "beim" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "bain" is a noun and "beim" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "bain" or "beim" show up more?
"beim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #113 in our German list, against #47,234 for "bain". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "bain" and "beim".

  • Full dictionary entry for "bain" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "beim" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,287,454 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "bain" and "beim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "bain vs puzzles". 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 #1,287,454 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