icevsihmWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: ice is a noun, ihm is a pronoun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“ice” is a noun and “ihm” is a pronoun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#4,620
“ice” frequency rank
#137
“ihm” frequency rank
4757
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ice ihm
Definition Eis n Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Dativ

Where the eye mixes ice and ihm

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 1 letter in sequence.

3 ch
ice
3 ch
ihm

Visual trap between ice and ihm

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ice is [aɪs] while ihm is [iːm]. 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 pronoun), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 4757, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ice is recorded at frequency rank #4,620, classified as anoun, pronounced [aɪs]. ihm is at rank #137, tagged as apron, pronounced [iːm].

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 4757, this pair ranks #1,996,765 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ice vs ihm

Shared letters: i. Private to "ice": ce. Private to "ihm": hm.

"ice" · 3 letters · shape VCV  ·  "ihm" · 3 letters · shape VCC

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ice" and "ihm" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ice" is a noun and "ihm" a pronoun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary German text, does "ice" or "ihm" show up more?
"ihm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #137 in our German list, against #4,620 for "ice". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

Useful next steps

Pronunciation already separates them, if the page still looks alike, the dictionary links below settle it.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ice" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "ihm" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,996,765 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ice" and "ihm" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ice vs IMs". Nearby pair

Confusion rank #1,996,765 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