EimervseinemWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: Eimer is a noun, einem is a determiner, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“Eimer” is a noun and “einem” is a determiner - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#9,356
“Eimer” frequency rank
#57
“einem” frequency rank
9413
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Eimer einem
Definition hohes, rundes Gefäß, zumeist in Form eines Zylinders oder Kegelstumpfes, das mit einem beweglichen Henkel versehen ist und zur Aufbewahrung und/oder zum Transport, besonders von Flüssigkeiten, dient [1] Dativ Singular Maskulinum des unbestimmten Artikels ein

Where the eye mixes Eimer and einem

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 3 letters in sequence.

5 ch
Eimer
5 ch
einem

Look-alike desk: Eimer vs einem

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: Eimer is [ˈaɪ̯mɐ] while einem is [ˈaɪ̯nəm]. 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 (noun vs determiner), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 9413, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Eimer is recorded at frequency rank #9,356, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈaɪ̯mɐ]. einem is at rank #57, tagged as adet, pronounced [ˈaɪ̯nəm].

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 9413, this pair ranks #1,980,051 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of Eimer vs einem

Shared letters: eim. Private to "Eimer": r. Private to "einem": n.

"Eimer" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC  ·  "einem" · 5 letters · shape VVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Eimereiemr · eimerr · eimmer · eimre · iemer
  • einemeienm · einemm · einme · einnem · eniem · ienem

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Eimer" for "einem" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "Eimer" is a noun and "einem" a determiner, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "Eimer" or "einem" show up more?
"einem" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #57 in our German list, against #9,356 for "Eimer". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

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

  • Full dictionary entry for "Eimer" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "einem" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,980,051 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Eimer" and "einem" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Eimer vs Euter". 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 #1,980,051 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