camevscatsWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

“came” and “cats” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#37,428
“came” frequency rank
#28,127
“cats” frequency rank
65555
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature came cats
Definition Präteritum (simple past) des Verbs come 3. Person Singular Indikativ Präsens Aktiv des Verbs cat

Letter map: came vs cats

Shared letters muted; letters that set came and cats apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. came (CVCV) and cats (CVCC) run the same length but a different consonant-vowel pattern - the shape difference is usually the fastest tell.

4 ch
came
4 ch
cats

Corpus notes: came and cats

came and cats are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65555, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

came is recorded at frequency rank #37,428, classified as averb, pronounced […]. cats is at rank #28,127, tagged as averb, pronounced [kæts].

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 65555, this pair ranks #602,835 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of came vs cats

Shared letters: ac. Private to "came": em. Private to "cats": st.

"came" · 4 letters · shape CVCV  ·  "cats" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • came ← acme · caem · camme · ccame · cmae
  • cats ← cast · catss · catts · ccats · ctas

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "came" and "cats" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "came" or "cats" show up more?
"cats" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,127 in our German list, against #37,428 for "came". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

You've compared "came" and "cats". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "came" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "cats" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #602,835 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "came" and "cats" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "came 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 #602,835 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