lahmvslamWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: lahm is a adjective, lam is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“lahm” is an adjective and “lam” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#7,958
“lahm” frequency rank
#31,656
“lam” frequency rank
39614
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature lahm lam
Definition gelähmt und daher unbeweglich Genitiv Plural des Substantivs lama

Letter map: lahm vs lam

Shared letters muted; letters that set lahm and lam apart highlighted. Shared run: 3.

4 ch
lahm
3 ch
lam

Part-of-speech tell for lahm / lam

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: lahm is anadjective and lamanoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 39614, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

lahm is recorded at frequency rank #7,958, classified as anadj, pronounced [laːm]. lam is at rank #31,656, 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 39614, this pair ranks #1,531,818 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of lahm vs lam

Shared letters: alm. Private to "lahm": h. Private to "lam": -.

"lahm" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "lam" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • lahmalhm · lahhm · lahmm · lamh · lham · llahm

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "lahm" for "lam" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "lahm" is an adjective and "lam" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "lahm" or "lam"?
"lahm" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #7,958 in our German list, against #31,656 for "lam". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Pair "lahm" vs "lam" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "lahm" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "lam" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #1,531,818 of 2,006,359 scored German confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "lahm" and "lam" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "lam 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 #1,531,818 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