ihmvsitemTell them apart

Quick tell: ihm is a pronoun, item is an adverb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

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

#137
“ihm” frequency rank
#16,743
“item” frequency rank
16880
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature ihm item
Definition Personalpronomen 3. Person Maskulinum Singular Dativ auf die gleiche Weise

Where the eye mixes ihm and item

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

3 ch
ihm
4 ch
item

Look-alike desk: ihm vs item

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: ihm is [iːm] while item is [ˈiːtɛm]. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (pronoun vs adverb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16880, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

ihm is recorded at frequency rank #137, classified as apron, pronounced [iːm]. item is at rank #16,743, tagged as anadv, pronounced [ˈiːtɛm].

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 16880, this pair ranks #1,932,234 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of ihm vs item

Shared letters: im. Private to "ihm": h. Private to "item": et.

"ihm" · 3 letters · shape VCC  ·  "item" · 4 letters · shape VCVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • itemietm · itemm · ittem

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "ihm" and "item" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "ihm" is a pronoun and "item" an adverb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "ihm" vs "item" - which ranks higher?
"ihm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #137 in our German list, against #16,743 for "item". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Eye-level mix-up between "ihm" and "item" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.

  • Full dictionary entry for "ihm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "item" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,932,234 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "ihm" and "item" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "ile vs item". 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 #1,932,234 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