DiebevsdiesemWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Diebe is a noun, diesem is an unknown, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Diebe” is a noun and “diesem” is an unknown - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#11,208
“Diebe” frequency rank
#147
“diesem” frequency rank
11355
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Diebe diesem
Definition Nominativ Plural des Substantivs Dieb Dativ Singular Maskulinum des Demonstrativpronomens dies

Where the eye mixes Diebe and diesem

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Diebe
6 ch
diesem

Look-alike desk: Diebe vs diesem

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Diebe is [ˈdiːbə] while diesem is [ˈdiːzəm]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs unknown), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 11355, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Diebe is recorded at frequency rank #11,208, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈdiːbə]. diesem is at rank #147, tagged as anunknown, pronounced [ˈdiːzəm].

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 11355, this pair ranks #1,970,324 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Diebe vs diesem

Shared letters: dei. Private to "Diebe": b. Private to "diesem": ms.

"Diebe" · 5 letters · shape CVVCV  ·  "diesem" · 6 letters · shape CVVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Diebeddiebe · deibe · dibee · diebbe · dieeb · idebe
  • diesemddiesem · deisem · dieesm · diesemm · diesme · diessem · diseem · idesem

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "Diebe" and "diesem" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Diebe" is a noun and "diesem" an unknown, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Diebe" or "diesem" show up more?
"diesem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #147 in our German list, against #11,208 for "Diebe". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Diebe" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "diesem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,970,324 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Diebe" and "diesem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Diebe vs diet". 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 #1,970,324 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