beauvsbeimWhat's the difference?

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

Which to use

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

#33,995
“beau” frequency rank
#113
“beim” frequency rank
34108
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature beau beim
Definition schön, gut, angenehm Zusammenfluss von Präposition und bestimmtem Artikel (Dativ): bei dem

Where the eye mixes beau and beim

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
beau
4 ch
beim

Look-alike desk: beau vs beim

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: beau is [bo] while beim is [baɪ̯m]. 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 (adjective vs abbrev), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 34108, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

beau is recorded at frequency rank #33,995, classified as anadj, pronounced [bo]. 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 34108, this pair ranks #1,670,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of beau vs beim

Shared letters: be. Private to "beau": au. Private to "beim": im.

"beau" · 4 letters · shape CVVV  ·  "beim" · 4 letters · shape CVVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • beaubbeau · beua · ebau
  • beimbbeim · beimm · bemi · biem · ebim

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "beau" and "beim" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "beau" is an adjective and "beim" an abbrev, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "beau" or "beim" show up more?
"beim" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #113 in our German list, against #33,995 for "beau". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Eye-level mix-up between "beau" and "beim" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "beau" 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 #1,670,821 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "beau" and "beim" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "beau vs bread". 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 #1,670,821 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