hamvshamaWhat's the difference?

Which to use

“ham” and “hama” are a confusable German pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#10,294
“ham” frequency rank
#44,666
“hama” frequency rank
54960
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ham hama
Definition äußerste Hautschicht bei Amphibien und Reptilien; Haut Eimer, Schüssel

Letter map: ham vs hama

Shared letters muted; letters that set ham and hama apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
ham
4 ch
hama

Corpus notes: ham and hama

ham and hama are indexed as a confusable German pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ham” sits inside “hama”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54960, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ham is recorded at frequency rank #10,294, classified as anoun, pronounced [ˈhɑmˀ]. hama is at rank #44,666, tagged as anoun.

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 54960, this pair ranks #998,170 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of ham vs hama

Shared letters: ahm. Private to "ham": -. Private to "hama": -.

"ham" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "hama" · 4 letters · shape CVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hamaahma · haam · hamma · hhama · hmaa

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ham" and "hama" be used interchangeably?
No. They differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “ham” sits inside “hama”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
In ordinary German text, does "ham" or "hama" show up more?
"ham" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #10,294 in our German list, against #44,666 for "hama". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "ham" and "hama". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ham" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "hama" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #998,170 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ham" and "hama" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hama vs haze". 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 #998,170 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