golemvslamaWhich spelling fits?

Quick tell: golem is a noun, lama is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“golem” is a noun and “lama” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#32,572
“golem” frequency rank
#17,641
“lama” frequency rank
50213
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature golem lama
Definition Golem alt

Letter map: golem vs lama

Shared letters muted; letters that set golem and lama apart highlighted. Shared run: 2. golem runs 5 letters (CVCVC) against lama's 4 (CVCV) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
golem
4 ch
lama

Part-of-speech tell for golem / lama

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: golem is anoun and lamaanadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 50213, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

golem is recorded at frequency rank #32,572, classified as anoun, pronounced […]. lama is at rank #17,641, tagged as anadj, pronounced […].

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 50213, this pair ranks #1,182,275 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of golem vs lama

Shared letters: lm. Private to "golem": ego. Private to "lama": a.

"golem" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC  ·  "lama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • golem ← ggolem · gloem · goelm · golemm · gollem · golme · oglem
  • lama ← laam · lamma · llama · lmaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "golem" for "lama" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "golem" is a noun and "lama" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "golem" or "lama" show up more?
"lama" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #17,641 in our German list, against #32,572 for "golem". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "golem" and "lama".

  • Full dictionary entry for "golem" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lama" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,182,275 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "golem" and "lama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "golem 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 #1,182,275 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