humvshumanWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hum is a pronoun, human is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hum” is a pronoun and “human” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#47,488
“hum” frequency rank
#8,222
“human” frequency rank
55710
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hum human
Definition männliches Personalpronomen der dritten Person Singular im Objektiv(≘ Dativ und Akkusativ): ihm, ihn menschlich, zum Menschen gehörend

Letter map: hum vs human

Shared letters muted; letters that set hum and human apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

3 ch
hum
5 ch
human

Role in the sentence - hum and human

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hum is apronoun and humananadjective. On the page they differ by 2 extra letter(s) - “hum” sits inside “human”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 55710, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hum is recorded at frequency rank #47,488, classified as apron, pronounced […]. human is at rank #8,222, tagged as anadj, pronounced [huˈmaːn].

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 55710, this pair ranks #968,865 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of hum vs human

Shared letters: hmu. Private to "hum": -. Private to "human": an.

"hum" · 3 letters · shape CVC  ·  "human" · 5 letters · shape CVCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • humanhhuman · hmuan · huamn · humann · humman · humna · uhman

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "hum" and "human" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hum" is a pronoun and "human" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "hum" or "human" show up more?
"human" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,222 in our German list, against #47,488 for "hum". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "hum" vs "human" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "hum" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "human" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #968,865 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "hum" and "human" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "hum 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 #968,865 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