HammvsharmWhich spelling fits?

Which to use

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

#7,334
“Hamm” frequency rank
#46,723
“harm” frequency rank
54057
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature Hamm harm
Definition gebogener Hang eines Weinbergs körperlicher oder geistiger Schaden

Letter map: Hamm vs harm

Shared letters muted; letters that set Hamm and harm apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
Hamm
4 ch
harm

Spelling & dictionary notes on Hamm vs harm

Hamm and harm 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 a single letter - m in “Hamm” becomes r in “harm”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 54057, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

Hamm is recorded at frequency rank #7,334, classified as anoun, pronounced [ham]. harm is at rank #46,723, tagged as anoun, 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 54057, this pair ranks #1,033,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of Hamm vs harm

Shared letters: ahm. Private to "Hamm": -. Private to "harm": r.

"Hamm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "harm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • Hammahmm · hhamm · hmam
  • harmahrm · hamr · harmm · harrm · hharm · hram

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "Hamm" for "harm" ever safe?
No. They differ by a single letter - m in “Hamm” becomes r in “harm”, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "Hamm" vs "harm" - which ranks higher?
"Hamm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,334 in our German list, against #46,723 for "harm". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Pair "Hamm" vs "harm" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "Hamm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "harm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,033,843 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "Hamm" and "harm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "harm 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 #1,033,843 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