damvsdenWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dam is a abbrev, den is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“dam” is an abbrev and “den” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#24,288
“dam” frequency rank
#10
“den” frequency rank
24298
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dam den
Definition Dekameter Akkusativ Singular Maskulinum des bestimmten Artikels der

Letter map: dam vs den

Shared letters muted; letters that set dam and den apart highlighted. Shared run: 1.

3 ch
dam
3 ch
den

Part-of-speech tell for dam / den

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dam is anabbrev and denanunknown. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24298, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dam is recorded at frequency rank #24,288, classified as anabbrev. den is at rank #10, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [deːn].

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 24298, this pair ranks #1,849,612 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dam vs den

Shared letters: d. Private to "dam": am. Private to "den": en.

"dam" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "den" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "dam" and "den" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dam" is an abbrev and "den" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dam" vs "den" - which ranks higher?
"den" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10 in our German list, against #24,288 for "dam". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "dam" and "den".

  • Full dictionary entry for "dam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "den" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,849,612 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dam" and "den" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dam vs duc". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,849,612 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