damvsduWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: dam is a abbrev, du is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#24,288
“dam” frequency rank
#38
“du” frequency rank
24326
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature dam du
Definition Dekameter der Angesprochene oder Angeschriebene, falls nicht die Höflichkeitsform Sie verwendet wird

Letter map: dam vs du

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

3 ch
dam
2 ch
du

Part-of-speech tell for dam / du

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: dam is anabbrev and duapronoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 24326, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

dam is recorded at frequency rank #24,288, classified as anabbrev. du is at rank #38, tagged as apron, pronounced [duː].

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 24326, this pair ranks #1,849,192 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of dam vs du

Shared letters: d. Private to "dam": am. Private to "du": u.

"dam" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "du" · 2 letters · shape CV

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "dam" for "du" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "dam" is an abbrev and "du" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "dam" vs "du" - which ranks higher?
"du" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #38 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

You've compared "dam" and "du". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "dam" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "du" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,849,192 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "dam" and "du" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "dam vs duc". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,849,192 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